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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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PEARLS 

FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

FROM THE LATER WORKS OF 
JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. 

INCLUDING 

LETTERS AND ADVICE 

ON 

Education, Dress, Marriage, Influence, 
Work, Rights, etc. 



COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY 

MRS. LOUISA C. TUTHILL. 



"Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good 
report ; if there be any virtue, and if there be any piaise, think on these 
things." 



SECOND EDITION. 

NEW YORK 
74 FIFTH AVENUE 



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COPYRIGHT, 

1070, 

By John Wiley & Sons. 



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PREFACE. 



One of the most brilliant, discursive, and orig- 
inal authors of the present century is the cele- 
brated John Ruskin, LL.D., Professor of Art in 
Oxford University, England. 

Having explored Nature, from the highest 
clouds floating above the earth, to the tiniest 
moss clinging to its surface ; he has written a 
series of books, describing the whole realm with 
the imagination of a poet, and the profound 
knowledge of a physiologist* .« * 

Mr. ^us ; km-s; talent ; and taste for Art might 
have rendered him famous as an artist; he pre- 
ferred giving to the world, by his writings, the 
knowledge of architecture, sculpture and paint- 
ing, acquired by keen observation and extensive 
study of the works of artists, ancient and mod- 
ern. 

In his later and recent writings it has been his 
design to act upon human life in its social, do- 
mestic and personal relations, so as to correct in 



IV 



PREFACE. 



it what is corrupt and vicious and to impart wis- 
dom and goodness. 

Mr. Ruskin's works are so voluminous, that 
very few private libraries and not many public 
libraries contain them all; hence selections 
from them have been acceptable to general 
readers. 

The present volume, for young ladies, has 
been gathered from thousands of pages of his 
later works — letters, advice, sentiments, ex- 
amples, and general principles; " Pearls" from 
an ocean of thought. L. C. T. 

Princeton, August 28th, 1878. 




INTRODUCTION. 



Very few young ladies know anything of Mr. 
Ruskin, excepting that he is a celebrated author. 
They may, therefore, be glad to learn something 
of his early life — his aims, and his success in 
after years, as seen from his own point of 
view. 

His violent invectives against what he believes 
to be wrong-thinking and wrong-doing, have led 
to a misapprehension of his personality. 

An American lady, while travelling in England 
not long since, met a lady who resides near Mr. 
Ruskin, at Denmark Hill. The English lady 
said : " Mr. Ruskin is the kindest and best of 
neighbors ; we all love him." 

l. c. T. 
" Though like a lion in his wrath, 
He was as gentle too; 
A little flow'r was on his path, — 
He spared it, — kind Sir Hugh ! 
" ' Upon his shield a castle tall ; 
And plain to ev'ry eye 
His motto, blazon'd on the wall: 
Amicis et mihi." 

Old Ballad. 



INDEX, 



A UTOBIOGRAPHY. 

Blessings of childhood, 

Cause of the bias of after life," . 

Characteristics; Free will, 

Dates and teaching of different works, 

Designed for the Church, . 

Dominant calamities, 

Early church-going; his sermon, 

Early reading, .... 

Effect of failure, 

Effects of this study, 

Faults of education ; nurse Anne, 

His father; travels with him, . 

Introduction, .... 

Juvenile poem, 

Learning the Bible by heart, 

Lessons; effect of independence, 

List of chapters committed to memory, 

Manner of studying the Bible, . 

Meeting with James Forbes, 

Patience of his mother, 

Playthings; house and garden, , 

The art gift inherited, 

Unsympathetic friends, 



PAGE 
XX 

xiv 
xxxvii 

XXXV 

XV 

xxi 

xv i 

XXV 

xxxix 
xxx 

xxiii 

xiii 

v 

xxxiv 

xxv 

xviii 

xxx 

xxviii 

xxxi 

xxvi 

xvii 

xxxiii 

xxxviii 



V1I1 INDEX. 

EDUCA TION. 

PAGE 

Advice to a young girl, i 

Astronomy, Geometry, Arithmetic, .... 104 

Beginning of education, 178 

Books of the hour, etc., . . . . . .12 

Choice of books, 18 

Civil law, Christian law, ...... 107 

Derivation of words, ...... 19 

Devotional and dogmatic theology, .... 108 

False modesty — Dress, ...... 68 

Grammar, 101 

Guardian angels, 283 

Healthy reading, . . . . . . .281 

Kind of education for women, 8 . . . .42 

Lady Jane Grey, ....... 233 

Lessons from crystals, 52 

Letter to a young lady on dress, . . . . 222 

Liberty not independence, . . . . .135 

Literature for girls, ....... 47 

Logic, Music, ........ 103 

Music and patience, . 51 

Practical theology, 107 

Reverence and compassion, ..... 109 

Rhetoric, 101 

St. George's orders to a school-girl, . . . 239 

Sugar-tongs, 20 

The moment of choice, ...... 98 

Waste of vital power, ...... 49 

WOMAN. 

A wife's notion, • 238 

Courage, gentleness, courtesy, . • . .92 

Dress for beholders, . . • • . . 257 



INDEX. IX 

PAGE 

Employment for women, 163 

Evidence of facts given by the human heart, . . 36 

Games of life, 85 

Greek heroines, 33 

Kingly and queenly, 24 

Letter on woman's work, 205 

Mischievous fair ones, 277 

Noble tribute to woman, 22 

Poem of a Knight of Pisa, 32 

^Scott's idea of woman, 30 

Shakespeare's heroines, ...... 28 

" testimony to woman, . . . .30 

Testimony of Dante, 31 

The best women the most difficult to know, . .22 
The industrious princess, . . . e . .257 

The Madonna, 208 

Three women who formed the mind of Scott, . .178 

Wise expenditure, 134 

Woman's function not determining, . . . .39 

Woman's guiding power, 34 

Woman's influence in the game of war, . . .87 

Woman's rights, 26 

Young unmarried women, 236 

NATURE AND ART. 

Blossom of the thorn, 133 

Condition of good work, 83 

Definition of an artist, ...... 236 

Gradation of life, . . , . , „ .71 

Healthy art, . .97 

Importance of accuracy, . . . . . .95 

Meaning of creation, 162 

Music and dancing, no 



X INDEX. 

PAGE 

Perfection of music, . 114 

Perversion of art, 112 

Plant-pets, 21 S 

Plants and their teaching, . . . . .129 

Power of painting, . . . . . . .281 

Right art a teacher, 74 

Starlight, 275 

The bird, embodied spirit, 79 

The robin, . . . . . . .117 

The shaping power, . . . . . . .77 

True architecture, 149 

NARRATIVE AND CRITICISM. 

Alice of Salisbury, 258 

Author of the Mirror of Peasants y . . . .172 
Carpaccio's Princess, ...... 145 

Destiny and providence, 278 

Fellow-travellers, ....... 248 

Frankness, ........ 210 

Giotto's " Poverty," . . . . . . 213 

Gotthelf's "Hansli," 185 

Heart of Midlothian, . . . . . .279 

Largesse or generosity, . . . . . .213 

Main use of works of fiction, . . . . .155 

Redgauntlet, . . . . . . . .218 

Saint Ursula, ........ 26a 

Sir Walter Scott, 176 

Sympathy necessary to comprehension, . . .153 

Three great divisions of life, 177 

Tobias, . 270 

Toni'sdog, 274 

True story from the journal of an Englishman, . 166 
" Une paire de gants," 229 



INDEX. 


XI 


MORALS AND RELIGION. 






PAGE 


Action and faith, 


• 154 


Advent teaching, ..... 


. 224 


Answer to attacks on Scripture, 


. 93 


Candles, ....... 


. 137 


Charity in judging, 


• 73 


Christmas, ...... 


. 138 


Christ's law of property, .... 


. 245 


Corollary on 8th Psalm, .... 


. 228 


1 ' Deliver us from evil," .... 


. 271 


Duties of the higher classes, 


. 120 


Essentials of life, ..... 


. 136 


God a kind father, . . . 


. 67 


Heathen poets and philosophers, 


• 75 


Modesty, the measuring virtue, 


. 81 


Our Divine King, ...... 


. 227 


Precious stones and skins of the Tabernacle, 


. 125 


Redeemed from death, .... 


. 268 


Retribution, ...... 


. 144 


Self-sacrifice, ....... 


. 63 


Station in lne, ....«, 


- 174 


Sunday, a glad day, 


. 152 


Test of usefulness of possessions, 


. 5i 


The conventual system, .... 


. . 69 


The presence of Christ, .... 


. 216 


The purest souls the truest, 


. 7i 


The right, ....... 


. 258 


The sin of Judas, 


. 50 


The spirit of life, , 


. 223 


The 19th Psalm, 


. 272 


" Thy kingdom come," 


• 94 


True humility, 


. 113 


True religions forms of prayers, 


. 276 



Xll INDEX. 



M ISC ELL A NEOUS. 

PAGE 

Faithful love, 124 

Marriage in an ideal kingdom, 123 

Proceeds of " Denmark Hill," 256 

Sensation ennobling, ...... 23 

Signs of degeneracy, . . . . . .120 

The purest faculties most liable to corruption, . . 115 
The telegraph, ........ 165 

True marriage, 3& 




IN THE 

FOLLOWING EXTRACTS, 

GATHERED HERE AND THERE* 
BY THE EDITOR, 

MAY BE FOUND WHAT MR. RUSKIN SAYS OF 
HIMSELF. 



My father began business as a wine-merchant, 
with no capital, and a considerable amount of 
debts bequeathed him by my grandfather. He 
accepted the bequest, and paid them all before 
he began to lay by anything for himself, for 
which his best friends called him a fool, and I, 
without expressing any opinion as to his wisdom, 
which I knew in such matters to be at least equal 
to mine, have written on the granite slab over 
his grave that he was an " entirely honest mer- 
chant." 

Years went on, and I came to be four or five 
years old: he could command a post-chaise and 
pair for two months in the summer, by help of 
which, with my mother and me, he went the 

xiii 



XIV MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

round of his country customers. I saw all the 
highroads, and most of the cross ones, of Eng- 
land and Wales, and great part of lowland Scot- 
land, as far as Perth, where every other year we 
spent the whole summer; and I used to read the ' 
Abbot %X. Kinross and the Monastery in Glen Farg, 
which I confused with " Glendearg," and 
thought that the White Lady had as certainly 
lived by the streamlet in that glen of the Ochils, 
as the Queen of Scots in the island of Loch 
Leven. 

It happened also, which was the real cause of 
the bias of my after life, that my father had a 
rare love of pictures. I use the word " rare" 
advisedly, having never met with another 
instance of so innate a faculty for the discern- 
ment of true art, up to the point possible with- 
out actual practice. Accordingly, wherever there 
was a gallery to be seen, we stopped at the near- 
est town for the night; and in reverentest man- 
ner I thus saw nearly all the noblemen's houses 
in England; not indeed myself at that age car- 
ing for the pictures, but much for castles and 
ruins, feeling more and more, as I grew older, 
the healthy delight of uncovetous admiration, 
and perceiving, as soon as I could perceive any 
political truth at all, that it was probably much 
happier to live in a small house, and have War- 
wick Castle to be astonished at, than to live in 



MR. RUSK IN ON HIMSELF. XV 

Warwick Castle, and have nothing to be aston- 
ished at; but that, at all events, it would not 
make Brunswick Square in the least more pleas- 
antly habitable, to pull Warwick Castle down. 
And, at this day, though I have kind invitations 
enough to visit America, I could not, even for a 
couple of months, live in a country so miserable 
as to possess no castles. 

My mother had, as she afterwards told me, 
solemnly devoted me to God before I was born; 
in imitation of Hannah. " Devoting me to God'* 
meant, as far as my mother knew herself what 
she meant, that she would try to send me to 
college, and make a clergyman of me: and I was 
accordingly bred for " the Church." My father, 
who — rest be to his soul — had the exceedingly 
bad habit of yielding to my mother in large 
things and taking his own way in little ones, al- 
lowed me, without saying a word, to be thus 
withdrawn from the sherry trade as an unclean 
thing; not without some pardonable participa- 
tion in my mother's ultimate views for me. For, 
many and many a year afterwards, I remember, 
while he was speaking to one of our artist friends, 
who admired Raphael, and greatly regretted my 
endeavors to interfere with that popular taste, — 
while my father and he were condoling with 
each other on my having been impudent enough 
to think I could tell the public about Turner and 



XVI MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

Raphael, — instead of contenting myself, as I 
ought, with explaining the way of their soul's 
salvation to them — and what an amiable clergy- 
man was lost in me, — " Yes," said my father, with 
tears in his eyes — (true and tender tears as ever 
father shed) — " He would have been a bishop." 

Luckily for me, my mother, under these dis- 
tinct impressions of her own duty, and with such 
latent hopes of my future eminence, took me 
very early to church; where, in spite of my 
quiet habits, and my mother's golden vinaigrette, 
always indulged to me there, and there only, 
with its lid unclasped that I might see the 
wreathed open pattern above the sponge, I 
found the bottom of the pew so extremely dull 
a place to keep quiet in (my best story-books 
being also taken away from me in the morning), 
that — as I have somewhere said before — the 
horror of Sunday used even to cast its prescient 
gloom as far back in the week as Friday — and 
all the glory of Monday, with church seven days 
removed again, was no equivalent for it." 

I arrived at some abstract in my own mind of 
the Rev. Mr. Howell's sermons; and occasionally 
— in imitation of him, preached a sermon at 
home over the red sofa cushions; — -this perform- 
ance being always called for by my mother's 
dearest friends, as the great accomplishment of 
my childhood. The sermon was — I believe — 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XVll 

some eleven words long — very exemplary, it 
seems to me, in that respect — and I still think 
must have been the purest gospel, for I know it 
began with " People, be good." 

I was never permitted for an instant to hope, 
or even imagine, the possession of such things 
as one saw in toy-shops. I had a bunch of keys 
to play with, as long as I was capable only of 
pleasure in what glittered and jingled; as I grew 
older, I had a cart, and a ball; and when I was 
five or six years old, two boxes of well-cut 
wooden bricks. With these modest, but I still 
think entirely sufficient possessions, and being 
always summarily whipped if I cried, did not do 
as I was bid, or tumbled on the stairs, I soon 
attained serene and secure methods of life and 
motion. 

The group, of which our house was the quar- 
ter, consisted of two precisely similar partner- 
couples of houses, — gardens and all to match; 
still the two highest blocks of building seen 
from Norwood on the crest of the ridge; which, 
even within the time I remember, rose with no 
stinted beauty of wood and lawn above the Dul- 
wich fields. 

The house itself, three-storied, with garrets 
above, commanded, in those comparatively 
smokeless days, a very notable view from its 
upper windows, of the Norwood hills on one 



XVlll MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF, 

side, and the winter sunrise over them; and of 
the valley of the Thames, with Windsor in the 
distance, on the other, and the summer sunset 
over these. It had front and back garden in 
sufficient proportion to its size. Possessing also 
a strong old mulberry tree, a tall white-heart 
cherry tree, a black Kentish one, and an almost 
unbroken hedge, all round, of alternate goose- 
berry and currant bush; decked, in due season 
(for the ground was wholly beneficent), with 
magical splendor of abundant fruit : fresh 
green, soft amber, and rough-bristled crimson 
bending the spinous branches; clustered pearl 
and pendent ruby joyfully discoverable under 
the large leaves that looked like vine. 

The differences of primal importance which I 
observed between the nature of this garden, and 
that of Eden, as I had imagined it, were, that, 
in this one, all the fruit was forbidden; and 
there were no companionable beasts: in other 
respects the little domain answered every pur- 
pose of Paradise to me; and the climate, in that 
cycle of our years, allowed me to pass most of 
my life in it. My mother never gave me more 
to learn than she knew I could easily get learnt, 
if I set myself honestly to work, by twelve o'clock. 
She never allowed anything to disturb me when 
my task was set ; if it was not said rightly by twelve 
o'clock, I was kept in till I knew it, and in gen- 



MR. RUSK IN ON HIMSELF. XIX 

eral, even when Latin Grammar came to supple- 
ment the Psalms, I was my own master for at 
least an hour before dinner at half-past one, and 
for the rest of the afternoon. My mother, her- 
self finding her chief personal pleasure in her 
flowers, was often planting or pruning beside me 
— at least if I chose to stay beside her. I never 
thought of doing anything behind her back 
which I would not have done before her face; 
and her presence was therefore no restraint to 
me; but, also, no particular pleasure; for, from 
having always been left so much alone, I had 
generally my own little affairs to see after; and 
on the whole, by the time I was seven years old 
was already getting too independent mentally, 
even of my father and mother; and having no- 
body else to be dependent upon, began to lead a 
very small, perky, contented, conceited, Cock- 
Robinson-Crusoe sort of life, in the central 
point which it appeared to me (as it must nat- 
urally appear to geometrical animals) that I oc- 
cupied in the universe. 

This was partly the fault of my fathers mod- 
esty; and partly of his pride. He had so much 
more confidence in my mother's judgment as to 
such matters than in his own, that he never ven- 
tured even to help, much less to cross her, in the 
conduct of my education. 

I never had heard my father's or mother's 



XX MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

voice once raised in any question with each 
other; nor seen an angry or even slightly hurt or 
offended glance in the eyes of either. I had 
never heard a servant scolded, nor even sud- 
denly, passionately, or in any severe manner, 
blamed. I had never seen a moment's trouble 
or disorder in any household matter; nor any- 
thing whatever either done in a hurry, or undone 
in due time. 

Next to this quite priceless gift of Peace, I 
had received the perfect understanding of the 
natures of Obedience and Faith. I obeyed 
word, or lifted finger, of father or mother, sim- 
ply as a ship her helm; not only without idea of 
resistance, but receiving the direction as a part 
of my own life and force, a helpful law, as nec- 
essary to me in every moral action as the law of 
gravity in leaping. And my practice in Faith 
was soon complete: nothing was ever promised 
me that was not given; nothing ever threatened 
me that was not inflicted, and nothing ever told 
me that was not true. 

Peace, obedience, faith; these three for chief 
good; next to these, the habit of fixed attention 
with both eyes and mind — on which I will not fur- 
ther enlarge at this moment, this being the main 
practical faculty of my life, causing Mazzini to 
say of me, in conversation authentically re- 
ported, a year or two before his death, that I had 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXI 

"the most analytic mind in Europe." An opin- 
ion in which, so far as I am acquainted with 
Europe, I am myself entirely disposed to con- 
cur. 

Lastly, an extreme perfection in palate and all 
other bodily senses, given by the utter prohibi- 
tion of cake, wine, comfits, or, except in careful- 
lest restriction, fruit; and by fine preparation of 
what food was given me. Such I esteem the 
main blessings of my childhood; — next, let me 
count the equally dominant calamities. 

First, that I had nothing to love. 

My parents were — in a sort — visible powers of 
nature to me, no more loved than the sun and 
the moon: only I should have been annoyed 
and puzzled if either of them had gone out; 
(how much, now, when both are darkened !) — 
still less did I love God; not that I had any 
quarrel with Him, or fear of Him; but simply 
found what people told me was His service, dis- 
agreeable; and what people told me was His 
book, not entertaining. I had no companions to 
quarrel with, neither; nobody to assist, and no- 
body to thank. Not a servant was ever allowed 
to do anything for me, but what it was their 
duty to do. The evil consequence of all this 
was not, however, what might perhaps have been 
expected, that I grew up selfish or unaffection- 
ate; but that, when affection did come, it came 



XXll MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

with violence utterly rampant and unmanage* 
able, at least by me, who never before had any- 
thing to manage. 

For (second of chief calamities) I had noth- 
ing to endure. Danger or pain of any kind I 
knew not: my strength was never exercised, my 
patience never tried, and my courage never for- 
tified. Not that I was ever afraid of anything, 
— either ghosts, thunder, or beasts; and one of 
the nearest approaches to insubordination which 
I was ever tempted into as a child, was in pas- 
sionate effort to get leave to play with the lion's 
cubs in Wombwell's menagerie. 

Thirdly. I was taught no precision nor eti- 
quette of manners; it was enough if, in the little 
society we saw, I remained unobtrusive, and re- 
plied to a question without shyness. 

Lastly, and chief of evils. My judgment of 
right and wrong, and powers of independent 
action,* were left entirely undeveloped; because 
the bridle and blinkers were never taken off me. 
Children should have their times of being off 
duty, like soldiers; and when once the obedi- 
ence, if required, is certain, the little creature 
should be very early put for periods of practice 
in complete command of itself; set on the 

* Action, observe, I say here ; in thought I was too in- 
dependent, as said above. 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XX111 

barebacked horse of its own will, and left to 
break it by its own strength. The ceaseless au- 
thority exercised over my youth left me, when 
cast out at last into the world, unable for some 
time to do more than drift with its ele- 
ments. 

My present verdict, therefore, on the general 
tenor of my education at that time, must be, that 
it was at once too formal and too luxurious; 
leaving my character, at the most important 
moment for its construction, cramped indeed, 
but not disciplined; and only by protection in- 
nocent, instead of by practice virtuous. My 
mother saw this herself, and but too clearly, in 
later years; and whenever I did anything wrong, 
stupid, or hard-hearted — (and I have done many 
things that were all three) — always said, " It is 
because you were too much indulged. ,, 

Among the people whom one must miss out 
of one's life, dead, or worse than dead, by the 
time one is 54, I can only say, for my own part, 
that the one I practically and truly miss most, 
next to father and mother (and putting losses of 
imaginary good out of the question), was a 
" menial, " my father's nurse, and mine. She was 
one of our many — (our many being always but 
few) — and, from her girlhood to her old age, 
the entire ability of her life was given to serving 
us. She had a natural gift and specialty for 



XXIV MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

doing disagreeable things; above all, the service 
of a sick-room; so that she was never quite in 
her glory unless some of us were ill. She had 
also some parallel specialty for saying disagree- 
able things; and might be relied upon to give 
the extremely darkest view of any subject, before 
proceeding to ameliorative action upon it. And 
she had a very creditable and republican aver- 
sion to doing immediately, or in set terms, as 
she was bid; so that when my mother and she 
got old together, and my mother became very 
imperative and particular about having her tea- 
cup set on one side of her little round table, 
Anne would observantly and punctiliously put 
it always on the other; which caused my mother 
to state to me. every morning after breakfast, 
gravely, that, if ever a woman in this world was 
possessed by the Devil, Anne was that woman. 
But in spite of these momentary and petulant 
aspirations to liberality and independence of 
character, poor Anne remained verily servile in 
soul all her days; and was altogether occupied 
from the age of 15 to 72, in doing other people's 
wills instead of her own, and seeking other 
people's good instead of her own: nor did I 
ever hear on any occasion of her doing harm to 
a human being, except by saving two hundred 
and some odd pounds for her relations; in con- 
sequence of which some of them, after her 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXV 

funeral, did not speak to the rest for several 
months. 

I had Walter Scott's novels and the Iliad 
(Pope's translation), for my only reading, when 
I was a child, on week-days: on Sundays their 
effect was tempered by Robinson Crusoe and the 
Pilgrim's Progress; my mother having it deeply 
in her heart to make an evangelical clergyman 
of me. Fortunately, I had an aunt more evan- 
gelical than my mother; and my aunt gave me 
cold mutton for Sunday's dinner, which — as I 
much preferred it hot — greatly diminished the 
influence of the Pilgrim s Progress, and the end 
of the matter was, that I got all the noble imagi- 
native teaching of Defoe and Bunyan, and yet 
- — am not an evangelical clergyman. 

I had, however, still better teaching than 
theirs, and that compulsorily, and every day of 
the week. (Have patience with me in this ego- 
tism: it is necessary for many reasons that you 
should know what influences have brought me 
into the temper in which I write to you.) 

Walter Scott and Pope's Homer were reading 
of my own selection, but my mother forced me, 
by steady daily toil, to learn long chapters of the 
Bible by heart; as well as to read it every syl- 
lable through, aloud, hard names and all, from 
Genesis to the Apocalypse, about once a year; 
and to that discipline — patient, accurate, and 



XXVI MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

resolute — I owe, not only a knowledge of the 
book, which I find occasionally serviceable, but 
much of my general power of taking pains, and 
the best part of my taste in literature. From 
Walter Scott's novels I might easily, as I grew 
older, have fallen to other people's novels; and 
Pope might, perhaps, have led me to take John- 
son's English, or Gibbon's, as types of language; 
but, once knowing the 32d of Deuteronomy, the 
119th Psalm, the 15th of 1st Corinthians, the 
Sermon on the Mount, and most of the Apoca- 
lypse, every syllable by heart, and having always 
a way of thinking with myself what words meant, 
it was not possible for me, even in the foolishest 
times of youth, to write entirely superficial or 
formal English, and the affectation of trying to 
write like Hooker and George Herbert was the 
most innocent I could have fallen into. From 
my own masters, then, Scott and Homer, I 
learned the Toryism which my best after-thought 
has only served to confirm. 

We scarcely ever, in our study of education, 
ask this most essential of all questions about a 
man, What patience had his mother or sister with 
him? 

It is only by deliberate effort that I recall the 
long morning hours of toil, as regular as sunrise 
— toil on both sides equal — by which, year after 
year, my mother forced me to learn all the 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXVI 1 

Scotch paraphrases by heart, and ever so many 
chapters of the Bible besides (the eighth of ist 
Kings being one, — try it, good reader, in a leisure 
hour !) allowing not so much as a syllable to be 
missed or misplaced; while every sentence was 
required to be said over and over again till she 
was satisfied with the accent of it. I recollect a 
struggle between us of about three weeks, con- 
cerning the accent of the " of " in the lines 

1 ' Shall any following spring revive 
The ashes of the urn ?" 

I insisting, partly in childish obstinacy, and 
partly in true instinct for rhythm (being wholly 
careless on the subject both of urns and their 
contents), on reciting it, " The ashes of the urn.'* 
It was not, I say, till after three weeks' labor^ 
that my mother got the accent laid upon the 
ashes, to her mind. But had it taken three 
years, she would have done it, having once 
undertaken to do it. And, assuredly, had she 
not done it, I had been simply an avaricious 
picture collector, or perhaps even a more avari- 
cious money collector, to this day; and had she 
done it wrongly, no after-study would ever have 
enabled me to read so much as a single line of 
verse. 

I feel how much I owe to my mother for hav- 
ing so exercised me in the Scriptures as to make 



XXV111 MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

me grasp them in what my correspondent would 
call their " concrete whole;" and above all, 
taught me to reverence them, as transcending 
all thought, and ordaining all conduct. 

This she effected, not by her own sayings or 
personal authority; but simply by compelling me 
to read the book thoroughly, for myself. As 
soon as I was able to read with fluency, she be- 
gan a course of Bible work with me, which never 
ceased till I went to Oxford. She read alter- 
nately verses with me, watching, at first, every 
intonation of my voice, and correcting the false 
ones, till she made me understand the verse, if 
within my reach, rightly, and energetically. It 
might be beyond me altogether; t/iatshe did not 
care about; but she made sure that as soon as I 
got hold of it all, I should get hold of it by the 
right end. 

In this way she began with the first verse of 
Genesis, and went straight through to the last 
verse of the Apocalypse, hard names, numbers, 
Levitical law, and all; and began again at Gene- 
sis the next day ; if a name was hard, the better 
the exercise in pronunciation,— if a chapter was 
tiresome, the better lesson in patience, — if loath- 
some, the better lesson in faith that there was 
some use in its being so outspoken. 

It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible 
which my mother thus taught me, that which 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXIX 

cost me most to learn, and which was, to my 
child's mind, chiefly repulsive — the 119th Psalm 
— has now become of all the most precious to 
me, in its overflowing and glorious passion of 
love for the Law of God: " Oh, how love I Thy 
law,! it is my meditation all the day." 

I opened my oldest Bible just now, to look for 
the accurate words of David about the killed 
lamb; — a small, closely, and very neatly printed 
volume it is, printed in Edinburgh by Sir D. 
Hunter Blair and J. Bruce, Printers to the 
King's Most Excellent Majesty, in 1816. Yellow, 
now, with age, and flexible, but not unclean with 
much use, except that the lower corners of the 
pages at 8th of 1st Kings and 3 2d Deuteronomy 
are worn somewhat thin and dark, the learning 
of those two chapters having cost me much 
pains. My mother's list of the chapters with 
which, learned every syllable accurately, she es- 
tablished my soul in life, has just fallen out of 
it. And as probably the sagacious reader has 
already perceived that these letters are written 
in their irregular way, among other reasons that 
they may contain, as the relation may become 
apposite, so much of autobiography as it seems 
to me desirable to write, I will take what indul- 
gence the sagacious reader will give me, for 
printing the list thus accidentally occurrent: 



XXX MR. RUSK IN ON HIMSELF. 

Exodus, chapters 15th and 20th. 



2 Samuel 


a 


i st, from 17 th verse to 
the end. 


1 Kings 


it 


8th. 


Psalms 


u 


23d, 32d, 90th, 91st, 103d, 
1 1 2th, 119th, 139th. 


Proverbs 


a 


2d, 3d, 8th, 1 2th. 


Isaiah 


a 


S 8th. 


Matthew 


ti 


5th, 6th, 7th. 


Acts 


u 


26th. 


1 Corinthians 


u 


13th, 15th. 


James 


a 


4th. 


Revelation 


a 


5th, 6th. 



And truly, though I have picked up the ele- 
ments of a little further knowledge, — in mathe- 
matics, meteorology, and the like, in after life, — 
and owe not a little to the teaching of many 
people, this maternal installation of my mind in 
that property of chapters, I count very confi- 
dently the most precious, and, on the whole, the 
one essential part of all my education. 

For the chapters became, indeed, strictly con- 
clusive and protective to me in all modes of 
thought ; and the body of divinity they contain 
acceptable through all fear or doubt: nor 
through any fear or doubt or fault have I ever 
lost my loyalty to them, nor betrayed the first 
command in the one I was made to repeat 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXXI 

oftenest, " Let not Mercy and Truth forsake 
Thee." 

And at my present age of fifty-five, in spite of 
some enlarged observations of what modern 
philosophers call the Reign of Law, I perceive 
more distinctly than ever the Reign of a Spirit 
of Mercy and Truth, — infinite in pardon and 
purification for its wandering and faultful chil- 
dren, who have yet Love in their hearts; and 
altogether adverse and implacable to its perverse 
and lying enemies, who have resolute hatred in 
their hearts, and resolute falsehood on their lips. 

Village of Simplon, 2d September, 1876. 

I am writing in the little one-windowed room 
opening from the salle-a-manger of the Hotel de 
la Poste; but under some little disadvantage, be- 
ing disturbed partly by the invocation, as it 
might be fancied, of calamity on the heads of 
nations, by the howling of a frantic wind from 
the Col; and partly by the merry clattering of 
the knives and forks of a hungry party in the 
salon doing their best to breakfast adequately, 
while the diligence changes horses. 

In that same room — a little earlier in the year 
— two-and-thirty years ago, my father and mother 
and I were sitting at one end of the long table 
in the evening : and at the other end of it, a 
quiet, somewhat severe-looking, and pale, Eng- 



XXX11 MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

lish (as we suppose) traveller, with his wife; she, 
and my mother, working; her husband carefully 
completing some mountain outlines in his sketch- 
book. 

Those days are become very dim to me; and I 
forget which of the groups spoke first. My fa- 
ther and mother were always as shy as children; 
and our busy fellow-traveller seemed to us taci- 
turn, slightly inaccessible, and even Alpestre, 
and, as it were, hewn out of mountain flint, in 
his serene labor. 

Whether some harmony of Scottish accent 
struck my father's ear, or the pride he took in 
his son's accomplishments prevailed over his own 
shyness, I think we first ventured word across 
the table, with view of informing the grave 
draughtsman that we also could draw. Where- 
upon my own sketch-book was brought out, the 
pale traveller politely permissive. My good fa- 
ther and mother had stopped at the Simplon for 
me (and now, feeling miserable myself in the 
thin air, I know what it cost them), because I 
wanted to climb the high point immediately west 
of the Col, thinking thence to get a perspective 
of the chain joining the Fletschhorn to the Monte 
Rosa. I had been drawing there the best part 
of the afternoon, and had brought down with me 
careful studies of the Fletschhorn itself, and of a 
great pyramid far eastward, whose name I did 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXX111 

not know, but, from its bearing, supposed it 
must be the Matterhorn, which I had then never 
seen. 

I have since lost both these drawings; and if 
they were given away, in the old times, when I 
despised the best I did, because it was not like 
Turner, and any friend has preserved them, I 
wish they might be returned to me; for they 
would be of value in Deucalion, and of greater 
value to myself; as having won for me, that 
evening, the sympathy and help of James Forbes. 
For his eye grew keen, and his face attentive, 
as he examined the drawings; and he turned 
instantly to me as to a recognized fellow-work- 
man, — though yet young, no less faithful than 
himself. 

He heard kindly what I had to ask about the 
chain I had been drawing; only saying, with a 
slightly proud smile, of my peak supposed to be 
the Matterhorn,* " No, — and when once you 
have seen the Matterhorn, you will never take 
anything else for it !" 

I repeat it again and yet again, — that I may 
for once, if possible, make this thing assuredly 
clear: — the inherited art-gift must be there, as 
well as the life in some poor measure, or rescued 
fragment, right. This art-gift of mine could not 

* It was the Weisshorn. 



XXXI V MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

have been won by any work, or by any conduct; 
it belongs to me by birthright, and came from, 
the air of English country villages, and Scottish 
hills. I will risk whatever charge of folly may 
come on me, for printing one of my many child- 
ish rhymes, written on a frosty day in Glen Farg^ 
just north of Loch Leven. It bears date ist 
January, 1828. I was born on the 8th of Feb- 
ruary, 181 9; and all that I ever could be, and 
all that I cannot be, the weak little rhyme already 
shows. 

" Papa, how pretty those icicles are, 

That are seen so near,— that are seen so far; 

— Those dropping waters that come from the rocks 

And many a hole, like the haunt of a fox. 

That silvery stream that runs babbling along, 

Making a murmuring, dancing song. 

Those trees that stand waving upon the rock's side, 

And men, that, like spectres, among them glide, 

And waterfalls that are heard from far, 

And come in sight when very near. 

And the water-wheel that turns slowly round, 

Grinding the corn that — requires to be ground,— 

(Political Economy of the future !) 

And mountains at a distance seen, 

And rivers winding through the plain; 
And quarries with their craggy stones, 
And the wind among them moans." 

So foretelling Stones of Venice. 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXXV 

In rough approximation of date nearest to the 
completion of the several pieces of my past work, 
as they are built one on the other, — at twenty, I 
wrote "Modern Painters ;" at thirty, "The 
Stones of Venice; " at forty, " Unto this Last; " 
at fifty, the Inaugural Oxford lectures; and — if 
" Fors Clavigera" is ever finished as I mean — it 
will mark the mind I had at sixty; and leave me 
in my seventh day of life, perhaps — to rest. For 
the code of all I had to teach will then be, in 
form, as it is at this hour, in substance, completed. 
" Modern Painters" taught the claim of all lower 
nature on the hearts of men; of the rock, and 
wave, and herb, as a part of their necessary spirit 
life; in all that I now bid you to do, to dress the 
earth and keep it, I am fulfilling what I then 
began. 

The " Stones of Venice" taught the laws of 
constructive Art, and the dependence of all 
human work or edifice, for its beauty, on the 
happy life of the workman. " Unto this Last" 
taught the laws of that life itself, and its depend- 
ence on the Sun of Justice; the Inaugural 
Oxford lectures, the necessity that it should be 
led, and the gracious laws of beauty and labor 
recognized, by the upper, no less than the lower 
classes of England; and lastly " Fors Clavigera" 
has declared the relation of these to each other, 
and the only possible conditions of peace and 



XXXVI MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. 

honor, for low and high, rich and poor, together* 
in the holding of that first Estate, under the only 
Despot, God, from which whoso falls, angel or 
man, is kept, not mythically nor disputably, but 
here in visible horror of chains under darkness 
to the judgment of the great day; and in keeping 
which service is perfect freedom, and inheritance 
of all that a loving Creator can give to His 
creatures, and an immortal Father to His chil- 
dren. 

This, then, is the message, which, knowing no 
more as I unfolded the scroll of it, what next 
would be written there, than a blade of grass 
knows what the form of its fruit shall be, I have 
been led on year by year to speak even to this 
its end. 

What I am, since I take on me the function 
of a teacher, it is well that the reader should 
know, as far as I can tell him. 

Not an unjust person; not an unkind one*, 
not a false one; a lover of order, labor, and 
peace. That, it seems to me, is enough to give 
me right to say all I care to say on ethical sub- 
jects; more, I could only tell definitely through 
details of autobiography such as none but pros- 
perous and (in the simple sense of the word) 
faultless, lives could justify^-— and mine has been 
neither. 

Having said so much, I am content to leave 



MR. RUSKiy ON HIMSELF. XXXVU 

both life and work to be remembered or forgot- 
ten, as their uses may deserve. 

In many things I am the reverse of Conser- 
vative; nay, there are some long-established 
things which I hope to see changed before I die; 
but I want still to keep the fields of England 
green, and her cheeks red; and that girls should 
be taught to curtsey, and boys to take their hats 
off, when a professor or otherwise dignified per- 
son passes by; and that kings should keep their 
crowns on their heads, and bishops their crosiers 
in their hands; and should duly recognize the 
significance of the crown, and the use of the 
crook. 

I find some of my friends greatly agitated in 
mind about Responsibility, Free-will, and the 
like. I settled all those matters for myself, 
before I was ten years old, by jumping up and 
down an awkward turn of four steps in my 
nursery-stairs, and considering whether it was 
likely that God knew whether I should jump only 
three, or the whole four at a time. Having 
settled it in my mind that He knew quite well, 
though I didn't, which I should do; and also 
whether I should fall or not in the course of the 
performance, — though I was altogether respon- 
sible for taking care not to, — I never troubled 
my head more on the matter, from that day to 
this. But my friends keep buzzing and puzzling 



XXXV111 MR. RUSK IN ON HIMSELF. 

about it, as if they had to order the course of 
the world themselves; and won't attend to me 
for an instant, if I ask why little girls have large 
shoes. 

I don't suppose any man, with a tongue in his 
head, and zeal to use it, was ever left so entirely 
unattended to, as he grew old, by his early 
friends; and it is doubly and trebly strange to 
me, because I have lost none of my power of 
sympathy with them. Some are chemists; and I 
am always glad to hear of the last new thing in 
elements; some are palaeontologists, and I am 
no less happy to know of any lately unburied 
beast peculiar in his bones; the lawyers and 
clergymen can always interest me with any story 
out of their courts or parishes; — but not one of 
them ever asks what I am about myself. If 
they chance to meet me in the streets of Ox- 
ford, they ask whether I am staying there. 
When I say, yes, they ask how I like it; and 
when I tell them I don't like it at all, and don't 
think little girls should have large shoes, they 
tell me I ought to read the " Cours de Philoso- 
phic Positive." As if a man who had lived to 
be fifty-four, content with what philosophy was 
needful to assure him that salt was savory, and 
pepper hot, could ever be made positive in his 
old age, in the impertinent manner of these 
youngsters. But positive in a pertinent and 



MR. RUSKIN ON HIMSELF. XXXIX 

practical manner, I have been, and shall be; with 
such stern and steady wedge of fact and act as 
time may let me drive into the gnarled block- 
headism of the British mob. 

You know there is a tendency in the minds of 
many men, when they are heavily disappointed 
in the main purposes of their life, to feel, and 
perhaps in warning, perhaps in mockery, to de- 
clare that life itself is a vanity. Because it has 
disappointed them, they think its nature is of dis- 
appointment always, or at best, of pleasure that 
can be grasped by imagination only; that the 
cloud of it has no strength nor fire within; but 
is a painted cloud only, to be delighted in, yet 
despised. You know how beautifully Pope has 
expressed this particular phase of thought: 

" Meanwhile opinion gilds, with varying rays, 
These painted clouds that beautify our days; 
Each want of happiness by hope supplied, 
And each vacuity of sense, by pride. 

" Hope builds as fast as Knowledge can destroy; 
In Folly's cup, still laughs the bubble joy. 
One pleasure past, another still we gain, 
And not a vanity is given in vain." 

But the effect of failure upon my own mind has 
been just the reverse of this. The more that my 
life disappointed me, the more solemn and won- 
derful it became to me. It seemed, contrarily 
to Pope's saying, that the vanity of it was in- 



xl MR. RUSK IN ON HIMSELF. 

deed given in vain; but that there was some- 
thing behind the veil of it, which was not vanity. 
It became to me not a painted cloud, but a ter- 
rible and impenetrable one: not a mirage, which 
vanished as I drew near, but a pillar of dark- 
ness, to which I was forbidden to draw near. 
For I saw that both my own failure, and such 
success in petty things as in its poor triumph 
seemed to me worse than failure, came from the 
want of sufficiently earnest effort to understand 
the whole law and meaning of existence, and to 
bring it to noble and due end; as, on the other 
hand, I saw more and more clearly that all en- 
during success in the arts, or in any other occu- 
pation, had come from the ruling of lower pur- 
poses, not by a conviction of their nothingness, 
but by a solemn faith in the advancing power of 
human nature, or in the promise, however dimly 
apprehended, that the mortal part of it would 
one day be swallowed up in immortality; and 
that, indeed, the arts themselves never had 
reached any vital strength or honor but in the 
effort to proclaim this immortality, and in the 
service either of great and just religion, or of 
some unselfish patriotism, and law of such na- 
tional life as must be the foundation of religion. 



ixj§|Pi§§ 






PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 



ADVICE TO A YOUNG GIRL. 

The education and claims of women have 
greatly troubled simple minds and excited rest- 
less ones. I am sometimes asked my thoughts 
on this matter, and I suppose that some girl 
readers may desire to be told summarily what I 
would have them do and desire in the present 
state of things. This, then, is what I would say 
to any girl who had confidence enough in me to 
believe what I told her, or do what I ask her. 

First, be quite sure of one thing, that, however 
much you may know, and whatever advantages 
you may possess, and however good you may be, 
you have not been singled out, by the God who 
made you, from all the other girls in the world, 
to be especially informed respecting his own na- 
ture and character. You have not been born in 
a luminous point upon the surface of the globe, 
where a perfect theology might be expounded to 



2 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

you from your youth up, and where everything 
you were taught would be true, and everything 
that was enforced upon you, right. Of all the 
insolent, all the foolish persuasions that by any 
chance could enter and hold your empty little 
heart, this is the proudest and foolishest, — that 
you have been so much the darling of the Heav- 
ens, and favorite of the Fates, as to be born in 
the very nick of time, and in the punctual place, 
when and where pure Divine truth had been 
sifted from the errors of the Nations; and that 
your papa had been providentially disposed to 
buy a house in the convenient neighborhood of 
the steeple under which that Immaculate and 
final verity would be beautifully proclaimed. Do 
not think it; it is not so. This, on the contrary, 
is the fact, — unpleasant you may think it; pleas- 
ant, it seems to me^ — that you, with all your 
pretty dresses, and dainty looks, and kindly 
thoughts, and saintly aspirations, are not one 
whit more thought of or loved by the great 
Maker and Master than any poor little red, black, 
or blue savage, running wild in the pestilent 
woods, or naked on the hot sands of the earth: 
and that, of the two, you probably know less 
about God than she does; the only difference 
being that she thinks little of Him that is right, 
and you, much that is wrong. 

That, then, is the first thing to make sure of; 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 3 

— that. you are not yet perfectly well-informed 
on the most abstruse of ail possible subjects, and 
that, if you care to behave with modesty or pro- 
priety, you had better be silent about it. 

The second thing which you may make sure 
of is, that however good you may be, you have 
faults; that however dull you may be, you can 
find out what some of them are; and that how- 
ever slight they may be, you had better make 
some — not too painful, but patient — effort to get 
quit of them. And so far as you have confi- 
dence in me at all, trust me for this, that how 
many soever you may find or fancy your faults 
to be, there are only two that are of real conse- 
quence, — Idleness and Cruelty. Perhaps you 
may be proud. Well, we can get much good out 
of pride, if only it be not religious. Perhaps you 
may be vain: it is highly probable; and very 
pleasant for the people who like to praise you. 
Perhaps you are a little envious: that is really 
very shocking; but then — so is everybody else. 
Perhaps, also, you are a little malicious, which I 
am truly concerned to hear, but should probably 
only the more, if I knew you, enjoy your con- 
versation. But whatever else you may be, you 
must not be useless, and you must not be cruel. 
If there is any one point which, in six thousand 
years of thinking about right and wrong, wise 
and good men have agreed upon, or successively 



4 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

by experience discovered, it is that God dislikes 
idle and cruel people more than any others; — 
that His first order is, " Work while you have 
light;" and His second, " Be merciful while you 
have mercy." 

" Work while you have light," especially while 
you have the light of morning. There are few 
things more wonderful to me than that old peo- 
ple never tell young ones how precious their 
youth is. They sometimes sentimentally regret 
their own earlier days; sometimes prudently for- 
get them; often foolishly rebuke the young, 
often more foolishly indulge, often most foolish- 
ly thwart and restrain; but scarcely ever warn or 
watch them. Remember, then, that I, at least, 
have warned you, that the happiness of your life, 
and its power, and its part and rank in earth or 
in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days 
now. They are not to be sad days; far from 
that, the first duty of young people is to be de- 
lighted and delightful; but they are to be in the 
deepest sense solemn days. There is no solem- 
nity so deep, to a rightly-thinking creature, as 
that of dawn. But not only in that beautiful 
sense, but in all their character and method, they 
are to be solemn days. Take your Latin dic- 
tionary, and look out " sollennis," and fix the 
sense of the word well in your mind, and remem- 
ber that every day of your early life is ordaining 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 5 

irrevocably, for good or evil, the custom and 
practice of your soul; ordaining either sacred 
customs of dear and lovely recurrence, or trench- 
ing deeper and deeper the furrows for seed of 
sorrow. Now, therefore, see that no day passes 
in which you do not make yourself a somewhat 
better creature: and in order to do that, find 
out, first, what you are now. Do not think 
vaguely about it; take pen and paper, and write 
down as accurate a description of yourself as you 
can, with the date to it. If you dare not do so, 
find out why you dare not, and try to get strength 
of heart enough to look yourself fairly in the 
face, in mind as well as body. I do not doubt 
but that the mind is a less pleasant thing to look 
at than the face, and for that very reason it 
needs more looking at; so always have two mir- 
rors on your toilet-table, and see that with proper 
care you dress body and mind before them dai- 
ly. After the dressing is once over for the day, 
think no more about it: as your hair will blow 
about your ears, so your temper and thoughts 
will get ruffled with the day's work, and may 
need, sometimes, twice dressing; but I don't 
want you to carry about a mental pocket-comb; 
only to be smooth braided always in the morn- 
ing. 

Write down, then, frankly, what you are, or, 
at least, what you think yourself, not dwelling 



0» PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

upon those inevitable faults which I have just 
told you are of little consequence, and which the 
action of a right life will shake or smooth away; 
but that you may determine to the best of your 
intelligence what you are good for, and can be 
made into. You will find that the mere resolve 
not to be useless, and the honest desire to help 
other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest 
ways, improve yourself. Thus, from the begin- 
ning, consider all your accomplishments as means 
of assistance to others. In music especially you 
will soon find what personal benefit there is in 
being serviceable: it is probable that, however 
limited your powers, you have voice and ear 
enough to sustain a note of moderate compass in 
a concerted piece; — that, then, is the first thing 
to make sure you can do. Get your voice dis- 
ciplined and clear, and think only of accuracy; 
never of effect or expression: if you have any 
soul worth expressing it will show itself in your 
singing; but most likely there are very few feel- 
ings in you, at present, needing any particular 
expression; and the one thing you have to do is 
to make a clear-voiced little instrument of your- 
self, which other people can entirely depend 
upon for the note wanted. So, in drawing, as 
soon as you can set down the right shape of 
anything, and thereby explain its character to 
another person, or make the look of it clear and 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 7 

interesting to a child, you will begin to enjoy the 
art vividly for its own sake, and all your habits 
of mind and powers of memory will gain pre- 
cision, but if you only try to make showy draw- 
ings for praise, or pretty ones for amusement, 
your drawing will have little or no real interest 
for you, and no educational power whatever. 

Then, besides this more delicate work, resolve 
to do every day some that is useful in the vulgar 
sense. Learn first thoroughly the economy of 
the kitchen; the good and bad qualities of every 
common article of food, and the simplest and 
best modes of their preparation: when you have 
time, go and help in the cooking of poorer 
families, and show them how to make as much 
of everything as possible, and how to make little, 
nice: coaxing and tempting them into tidy and 
pretty ways, and pleading for well-folded table- 
cloths, however coarse, and for a flower or two 
out of the garden to strew on them. If you 
manage to get a clean table-cloth, bright plates 
on it, and a good dish in the middle, of your own 
cooking, you may ask leave to say a short grace; 
and let your religious ministries be confined to 
that much for the present. Again, let a certain 
part of your day (as little as you choose, but not 
to be broken in upon) be set apart for making 
strong and pretty dresses for the poor. Learn 
the sound qualities of all useful stuffs, and make 



8 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

everything of the best you can get. Every day, 
some little piece of useful clothing, sewn with 
your own fingers as strongly as it can be stitched;: 
and embroider it or otherwise beautify it mod- 
erately with fine needlework, such as a girl may 
be proud of having done. And accumulate 
these things by you until you hear of some 
honest persons in need of clothing, which may 
often too sorrowfully be; and, even though you 
should be deceived, and give them to the dis- 
honest, and hear of their being at once taken to 
the pawnbroker's, never mind that, for the pawn- 
broker must sell them , to some one who has 
need of them. That is no business of yours ; 
what concerns you is only that when you see a 
half-naked child, you should have good and 
fresh clothes to give it, if its parents will let it 
be taught to wear them. If they will not, con- 
sider how they came to be of such a mind, 
which it will be wholesome for you beyond most 
subjects of inquiry to ascertain. And after you 
have gone on doing this a little while, you will 
begin to understand the meaning of at least one 
chapter of your Bible, Proverbs xxxi., without 
need of any labored comment, sermons, or medi- 
tations. 

You must be to the best of your strength use- 
fully employed during the greater part of the 
day, so that you may be able at the end of it to 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 9 

say, as proudly as any peasant, that you have 
not eaten the bread of idleness. Then, secondly, 
I said, you are not to be cruel. Perhaps you 
think there is no chance of your being so; and, 
indeed, I hope it is not likely that you should 
be deliberately unkind to any creature; but un- 
less you are deliberately kind to every creature, 
you will often be cruel to many. Cruel, partly 
through want of imagination (a far rarer and 
weaker faculty in women than men), and yet 
more, at the present day, through the subtle en- 
couragement of your selfishness by the religious 
doctrine that all which we now suppose to be 
evil will be brought to a good end; doctrine 
practically issuing, not in less earnest efforts 
that the immediate unpleasantness may be 
averted from ourselves, but in our remaining sat- 
isfied in the contemplation of its ultimate ob- 
jects, when it is inflicted on others. 

Believe me, then, the only right principle of 
action here, is to consider good and evil as de- 
fined by our natural sense of both; and to 
strive to promote the one, and to conquer the 
other, with as hearty endeavor as if there were, 
indeed, no other world than this. Above all, 
get quit of the absurd idea that Heaven will in- 
terfere to correct great errors, while allowing its 
laws to take their course in punishing small ones. 
If you prepare a dish of food carelessly, you do not 



IO PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

expect Providence to make it palatable; neither 
if, through years of folly, you misguide your own 
life, need you expect Divine interference to 
bring round everything at last for the best. I tell 
you, positively, the world is not so constituted: 
the consequences of great mistakes are just as 
sure as those of small ones, and the happiness of 
your whole life, and of all the lives over which 
you have power, depends as literally on your 
own common sense and discretion as the excel- 
lence and order of the feast of a day. 

Think carefully and bravely over these things, 
and you will find them true: having found them 
so, think also carefully over your own position 
in life. I assume that you belong to the middle 
or upper classes, and that you would shrink 
from descending into a lower sphere. You may 
fancy you would not: nay, if you are very good, 
strong-hearted, and romantic, perhaps you really 
would not: but it is not wrong that you should. 
You have then, I suppose, good food, pretty rooms 
to live in, pretty dresses to wear, power of obtain- 
ing every rational and wholesome pleasure; you 
are, moreover, probably gentle and grateful, and 
in the habit of every day thanking God for these 
things. But why do you thank Him ? Is it 
because, in these matters, as well as in your re- 
ligious knowledge, you think He has made a 
favorite of you? Is the essential meaning of 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. II 

your thanksgiving, " Lord, I thank thee that I 
am not as other girls are, not in that I fast twice 
in the week while they feast, but in that I feast 
seven times a week while they fast," and are 
you quite sure this is a pleasing form of thanks- 
giving to your Heavenly Father? Suppose you 
saw one of your own true earthly sisters, Lucy 
or Emily, cast out of your mortal father's house, 
starving, helpless, heart-broken; and that every 
morning when you went into your father's room, 
you said to him, " How good you are, father, to 
give me what you don't give Lucy;" are you 
sure that, whatever anger your parent might 
have just cause for against your sister, he would 
be pleased by that thanksgiving, or flattered by 
that praise ? Nay, are you even sure that you 
are so much the favorite: suppose that, all this 
while, he loves poor Lucy just as well as you, 
and is only trying you through her pain, and 
perhaps not angry with her in anywise, but 
deeply angry with you, and all the more for 
your thanksgivings ? Would it not be well that 
you should think, and earnestly too, over this 
standing of yours; and all the more, if you wish 
to believe that text, " How hardly shall they that 
have riches enter into the Kingdom of God "? 

Think, then, and some day, I believe, you 
will feel also, — no morbid passion of pity such 
as would turn you into a black Sister of Charity, 



12 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

tut the steady fire of perpetual kindness which 
will make you a bright one. I speak in no dis- 
paragement of them; I know well how good the 
Sisters of Charity are, and how much we owe to 
them; but all these professional pieties (except 
so far as distinction or association may be 
necessary for effectiveness of work) are in their 
spirit wrong, and in practice merely plaster the 
sores of disease that ought never have been per- 
mitted to exist; encouraging at the same time 
the herd of less excellent women in frivolity, by 
leading them to think that they must either be 
good up to the black standard, or cannot be 
good for anything. Wear a costume, by all 
means, if you like; but let it be a cheerful and 
becoming one; and be in your heart a Sister of 
Charity always, without either veiled or voluble 
declaration of it. 



THE BOOKS OF THE HOUR AND THE BOOKS OF 
ALL TIME. 

All books are divisible into two classes, the 
books of the hour, and the books of all time. 
Mark this distinction — it is not one of quality 
only. It is not merely the bad book that does 
not last, and the good one that does. It is a 
distinction of species. There are good books 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 3 

for the hour, and good ones for all time; bad 
books for the hour, and bad ones for all time. 
I must define the two kinds before I go farther. 
The good book of the hour, then, — I do not 
speak of the bad ones, — is simply the useful or 
pleasant talk of some person whom you cannot 
otherwise converse with, printed for you. Very 
useful often, telling you what you need to 
know; very pleasant often, as a sensible friend's 
present talk would be. These bright accounts 
of travels; good-humored and witty discussions 
of question; lively or pathetic story-telling in 
the form of novel; firm fact-telling, by the real 
agents concerned in the events of passing his- 
tory; — all these books of the hour, multiplying 
among us as education becomes more general, 
are a peculiar characteristic and possession of 
the present age: we ought to be entirely thank- 
ful for them, and entirely ashamed of ourselves 
if we make no good use of them. But we make 
the worst possible use, if we allow them to 
usurp the place of true books: for, strictly 
speaking, they are not books at all, but merely 
letters or newspapers in good print. Our 
friend's letter may be delightful, or necessary, 
to-day: whether worth keeping or not, is to be 
considered. The newspaper may be entirely 
proper at breakfast time; but assuredly it is not 
reading for all day. So, though bound up in a 



14 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

volume, the long letter which gives you so 
pleasant an account of the inns, and roads, and 
weather last year at such a place, or which tells 
you that amusing story, or gives you the real cir- 
cumstances of such and such events, however 
valuable for occasional reference, may not be, 
in the real sense of the word, a " book " at all, 
nor, in the real sense, to be " read." A book is 
essentially not a talked thing, but a written 
thing; and written, not with the view of mere 
communication, but of permanence. The book 
of talk is printed only because its author cannot 
speak to thousands of people at once; if he 
could, he would — the volume is mere multiplica- 
tion of his voice. You cannot talk to your 
friend in India; if you could, you would; you 
write instead: that is mere conveyance of voice. 
But a book is written, not to multiply the voice 
merely, not to carry it merely, but to preserve 
it. The author has something to say which he 
perceives to be true and useful, or helpfully 
beautiful. So far as he knows, no one' has yet 
said it; so far as he knows, no one else can say 
it. He is bound to say it, clearly and melodi- 
ously if he may; clearly, at all events. In the 
sum of his life he finds this to be the thing, or 
group of things, manifest to him; — this the 
piece of true knowledge, or sight, which his 
share of sunshine and earth has permitted him 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 5 

to seize. He would fain set it down for ever; 
engrave it on rock, if he could; saying, " This is 
the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, 
and slept, loved, and hated, like another; my 
life was as the vapor, and is not; but this I saw 
and knew: this, if anything of mine, is worth 
your memory." That is his " writing;" it is, in 
his small human way, and with whatever degree 
of true inspiration is in him, his inscription, or 
scripture. That is a " Book." 

Perhaps you think no books were ever so 
written ? 

But, again, do you at all believe in honesty, 
or at all in kindness ? or do you think there is 
never any honesty or benevolence in wise peo- 
ple ? None of us, I hope, are so unhappy as to 
think that. Well, whatever bit of a wise man's 
work is honestly and benevolently done, that 
bit is his book, or his piece of art. It is mixed 
always with evil fragments — ill-done, redundant, 
affected work. But if you read rightly, you 
will easily discover the true bits, and those are 
the book. 

Now, books of this kind have been written in 
all ages by their greatest men; — by great lead- 
ers, great statesmen, and great thinkers. These 
are all at your choice; and life is short. You 
have heard as much before; — yet have you 
rneasured and mapped out this short life and its 



1 6 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

possibilities ? Do you know, if you read this, 
that you cannot read that— that what you lose 
to-day you cannot gain to-morrow ? Will you 
go and gossip with your housemaid, or your 
stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and 
kings; or flatter yourselves that it is with any 
worthy consciousness of your own claims to re- 
spect that you jostle with the common crowd 
for entree here, and audience there, when all the 
while this eternal court is open to you, with its 
society wide as the world, multitudinous as its 
days, the chosen, and the mighty, of every place 
and time ? Into that you may enter always; in 
that you may take fellowship and rank accord- 
ing to your wish; from that, once entered into 
it, you can never be outcast but by your own 
fault; by your aristocracy of companionship 
there, your own inherent aristocracy will be as- 
suredly tested, and the motives with which you 
strive to take high place in the society of the 
living, measured, as to all the truth and sincer- 
ity that are in them, by the place you desire to 
take in this company of the Dead. 

" The place you desire," and the place you 
jit yourself for, I must also say; because, observe, 
this court of the past differs from all living aris- 
tocracy in this: — it is open to labor and to merit, 
but to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no 
name overawe, no artifice deceive, the guardian 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 7 

of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no 
vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the 
portieres of that silent Faubourg St. Germain, 
there is but brief question, " Do you deserve to 
enter?" u Pass. Do you ask to be the compan- 
ion of nobles? Make yourself noble, and you 
shall be. Do you long for the conversation of 
the wise ? Learn to understand it, and you 
shall hear it. But on other terms ? — no. If you 
will not rise to us, we cannot stoop to you. 
The living lord may assume courtesy, the living 
philosopher explain his thought to you with con- 
siderable pain; but here we neither feign nor 
interpret; you must rise to the level of our 
thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, 
and share our feelings, if you would recognize 
our presence." 

Very ready we are to say of a book, " How 
good this is — that's exactly what I think !" But 
the right feeling is, " How strange that is ! I 
never thought of that before, and yet I see it is 
true; or if I do not now, I hope I shall, some day." 
But whether thus submissively or not, at least be 
sure that you go to the author to get at his 
meaning, not to find yours. Judge it afterwards, 
if you think yourself qualified to do so; but as- 
certain it first. And be sure also, if the author 
is worth anything, that you will not get at his 
meaning all at once; — nay, that at his w T hole 



1 8 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

meaning you will not for a long time arrive in 
anywise. Not that he does not say what he 
means, and in strong words too; but he cannot 
say it all; and what is more strange, will not, 
but in a hidden way and in parables, in order 
tfiat he may be sure you want it. 



CHOICE OF BOOKS. 

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of 
it few, we ought to waste none of them in read- 
ing valueless books; and valuable books should, 
in a civilized country, be within the reach of 
every one, printed in excellent form, for a just 
price; but not in any vile, vulgar, or, by reason 
of smallness of type, physically injurious form, 
at a vile price. For we none of us need many 
books, and those which we need ought to be 
clearly printed, on the best paper, and strongly 
bound. 

I would urge upon every young woman to ob- 
tain as soon at she can, by the severest economy, 
a restricted, serviceable, and steadily — however 
slowly — increasing, series of books for use 
through life; making her little library, of all the 
furniture in her room, the most studied and dec- 
orative piece; every volume having its assigned 
place, like a little statue in its niche. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 9 

DERIVATION OF WORDS. 

Now, in order to deal with words rightly, this 
is the habit you must form. Nearly every word 
in your language has been first a word of some 
other language — of Saxon, German, French, 
Latin, or Greek (not to speak of Eastern and 
primitive dialects). And many words have been 
all these; — that is to say, have been Greek first, 
Latin next, French or German next, and English 
last: undergoing a certain change of sense and 
use on the lips of each nation; but retaining a 
deep vital meaning which all good scholars feel 
in employing them, even at this day. If you do 
not know the Greek alphabet, learn it; young 
or old — girl or boy — whoever you may be, if 
you think of reading seriously (which, of course, 
implies that you have some leisure at command), 
learn your Greek alphabet; then get good dic- 
tionaries of all these languages, and whenever 
you are in doubt about a word, hunt it down 
patiently. Read Max Muller's lectures thor- 
oughly, to begin with; and, after that, never let 
a word escape you that looks suspicious. It is 
severe work; but you will find it, even at first, 
interesting, and at last, endlessly amusing. And 
the general gain to your character, in power and 
precision, will be quite incalculable. 

Mind, this does not imply knowing, or trying 



20 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

to know, Greek, or Latin, or French. It takes a 
whole life to learn any language perfectly. But 
you can easily ascertain the meanings through 
which the English word has passed; and those 
which in a good writer's work it must still bear. 



SUGAR TONGS. 

Hotel Meurice, 
Paris, 20th October, 1874. 
Expecting to be cold, I had ordered fire, and 
sat down by it to read my letters as soon as I 
arrived, not noticing that the little parlor was 
getting much too hot. Presently, in comes the 
chambermaid, to put the bedroom in order r 
which one enters through the parlor. Perceiv- 
ing that I am mismanaging myself, in the way of 
fresh air, as she passes through, " II fait bien 
chaud, monsieur, ici," says she reprovingly, and 
with entire self-possession. Now that is French 
servant-character of the right old school. She 
knows her own position perfectly, and means to 
stay in it, and wear her little white radiant frill 
of a cap all her days. She knows my position 
also; and has not the least fear of my thinking 
her impertinent because she tells me what it is 
right that I should know. Presently afterwards, 
an evidently German-importation of waiter 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2\ 

brings me up my breakfast, which has been 
longer in appearing than it would have been in 
old times. It looks all right at first, — the nap- 
kin, china, and solid silver sugar basin, all of the 
old regime. Bread, butter, — yes, of the best 
still. Coffee, milk, — all right too. But, at last, 
here is a bit of the new regime. There are no 
sugar-tongs; and the sugar is of beetroot, and in 
methodically similar cakes, which I must break 
with my finger and thumb if I want a small piece> 
and put back what I don't want for my neigh- 
bor, to-morrow. 

At the best hotel in what has been supposed 
the most luxurious city of modern Europe, — be- 
cause people are now always in a hurry to catch 
the train, they haven't time to use the sugar- 
tongs, or look for a little piece among differently 
sized lumps, and therefore they use their fingers. 

Now, on the poorest farm of the St. George's 
Company, the servants shall have white and 
brown sugar of the best — or none. If we are 
too poor to buy sugar, we will drink our tea with- 
out; and have suet-dumpling instead of pud- 
ding. But among the earliest school lessons, 
and home lessons, decent behavior at table will 
be primarily essential; and of such decency, one 
little exact point will be — the neat, patient, and 
scrupulous use of sugar-tongs instead of fingers. 
If we are too poor to have silver basins, we will 



22 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

have delf ones; if not silver tongs, we will have 
wooden ones; and the boys of the house shall 
be challenged to cut, and fit together, the pretti- 
est and handiest machines of the sort they can 
contrive. In six months you would find more real 
art fancy brought out in the wooden handles 
and claws, than there is now in all the plate in 
London. 



A NOBLE TRIBUTE TO WOMAN. 

No man ever lived a right life who had not 
been chastened by a woman's love, strengthened 
by her courage, and guided by her discretion. 



THE BEST WOMEN THE MOST DIFFICULT TO 

KNOW. 

The best women are indeed necessarily the 
most difficult to know; they are recognized 
chiefly in the happiness of their husbands and 
the nobleness of their children; they are only to 
be divined, not discerned, by the stranger; and, 
sometimes, seem almost helpless except in their 
homes; yet without the help of one of them* 
the day would probably have come before now, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$ 

when I should have written and thought no 
mere. 

On the other hand, the fashion of the time 
renders whatever is forward, coarse, or senseless, 
in feminine nature, too palpable to all men: — 
the weak picturesqueness of my earlier writings 
brought me acquainted with much of their empti- 
est enthusiasm; and the chances of later life 
gave me opportunities of watching women in 
states of degradation and vindictiveness which 
opened to me the gloomiest secrets of Greek and 
Syrian tragedy. 



SENSATION ENNOBLING. 

All the true literary work before you, for life, 
must begin with obedience to that order, 
" Break up your fallow ground, and sow not 
among thorns." Having then faithfully listened 
to the great teachers, that you may enter into 
their Thoughts, you have yet this higher ad- 
vance to make; — you have to enter into their 
Hearts. As you go to them first for clear sight, 
so you must stay with them that you may share 
at last their just and mighty Passion. Passion, 
or " sensation." I am not afraid of the word; 
still less of the thing. You have heard many 
outcries against sensation, lately; but, I can tell 



24 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

you, it is not less sensation we want, but more. 
The ennobling difference between one man and 
another, — between one animal and another, — is 
precisely in this, that one feels more than an- 
other. If we were sponges, perhaps sensation 
might not be easily got for us; if we were earth- 
worms, liable at every instant to be cut in two 
by the spade, perhaps too much sensation might 
not be good for us. But, being human creatures, 
it is good for us; nay, we are only human in so 
far as we are sensitive, and our honor is precisely 
in proportion to our passion. 



KINGLY AND QUEENLY. 

I want you to feel, with me, that whatever ad- 
vantages we possess in the present day in the 
diffusion of education and of literature, can only 
be rightly used by any of us when we have ap- 
prehended clearly what education is to lead to, 
and literature to teach. I wish you to see that 
both well-directed moral training and well- 
chosen reading lead to the possession of a 
power over the ill-guided and illiterate, which is, 
according to the measure of it, in the truest 
sense, kingly; conferring, indeed, the purest 
kingship that can exist among men: too many 
other kingships (however distinguished by visi- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$ 

ble insignia or material power) being either spec- 
tral, or tyrannous; — spectral — that is to say, 
aspects and shadows only of royalty, hollow as 
death, and which only the " Likeness of a kingly 
crown have on;" or else tyrannous — that is to 
say, substituting their own will for the law of 
justice and love by which all true kings rule. 

Believing that all literature and all education 
are only useful so far as they tend to confirm 
this calm, beneficent, and therefore kingly, 
power — first, over ourselves, and, through our- 
selves, over all around us, I am now going to 
ask you to consider with me further, what spe- 
cial portion or kind of this royal authority, aris- 
ing out of noble education, may rightly be pos- 
sessed by women; and how far they also are 
called to a true queenly power. Not in their 
households merely, but over all within their 
sphere. And in what sense, if they rightly un- 
derstood and exercised this royal or gracious in- 
fluence, the order and beauty induced by such 
benignant power would justify us in speaking of 
the territoties over which each of them reigned, 
as " Queens* Gardens." 

And here, in the very outset, we are met by a 
far deeper question, which — strange though this 
may seem — remains among many of us yet quite 
undecided, in spite of its infinite importance. 

We cannot determine what the queenly power 



26 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

of women should be, until we are agreed what 
their ordinary power should be. We cannot 
consider how education may fit them for any 
widely extending duty, until we are agreed what 
Is their true constant duty. And there never 
was a time when wilder words were spoken, or 
more vain imagination permitted, respecting this 
question — quite vital to all social happiness. 
The relations of the womanly to the manly na- 
ture, their different capacities of intellect or of 
virtue, seem never to have been yet measured 
with entire consent. 



WOMAN S RIGHTS. 

We hear of the mission and of the rights of 
Woman, as if these could ever be separate from 
the mission and the rights of Man; — as if she 
and her lord were creatures of independent 
kind and of irreconcilable claim. This, at least, 
is wrong. And not less wrong — perhaps even 
more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus 
far what I hope to prove) — is the idea that 
woman is only the shadow and attendant image 
of her lord, owing him a thoughtless and servile 
obedience, and supported altogether in her 
weakness by the pre-eminence of his fortitude. 

This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 27 

respecting her who was made to be the help- 
mate of man. As if he could be helped effec- 
tively by a shadow, or worthily by a slave ! 

Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at 
some clear and harmonious idea (it must be har- 
monious if it is true) of what womanly mind 
and virtue are in power and office, with respect 
to man's; and how their relations, rightly ac- 
cepted, aid, and increase, the vigor, and honor, 
and authority of both. 

And now I must repeat one thing, namely, 
that the first use of education was to enable us 
to consult with the wisest and the greatest men 
on all points of earnest difficulty. That to use 
books rightly, was to go to them for help: to ap- 
peal to them, when our own knowledge and 
power of thought failed; to be led by them into 
wider sight, purer conception than our own, and 
receive from them the united sentence of the 
judges and councils of all time, against our soli- 
tary and unstable opinion. 

Let us do this now. Let us see whether the 
greatest, the wisest, the purest-hearted of all ages 
are agreed in any wise on this point; let us hear 
the testimony they have left respecting what they 
held to be the true dignity of woman, and her 
mode of help to man. 



28 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 



SHAKESPEARE S HEROINES. 

And first let us take Shakespeare. 

Note broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has 
no heroes; — he has only heroines. There is 
hardly a play that has not a perfect woman in it, 
steadfast in grave hope and errorless purpose; 
Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imo- 
gen, Queen Katherine, Perdita, Sylvia, Viola, 
Rosalind, Helena, and last, and perhaps loveli- 
est, Virgilia, are all faultless; conceived in the 
highest heroic type of humanity. 

Then observe, secondly, 

The catastrophe of every play is caused al- 
ways by the folly or fault of a man; the redemp- 
tion, if there be any, is by the wisdom and vir- 
tue of a woman, and, failing that, there is none. 
The catastrophe of King Lear is owing to his 
own want of judgment, his impatient vanity, his 
misunderstanding of his children; the virtue of 
his one true daughter would have saved him from 
all the injuries of the others, unless he had cast 
her away from him; as it is, she all but saves 
him. 

Of Othello I need not trace the tale; — nor the 
one weakness of his so mighty love; nor the in- 
feriority of his perceptive intellect to that even 
of the second woman character in the play, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$ 

the Emilia who dies in wild testimony against 
his error: — " Oh, murderous coxcomb ! What 
should such a tool Do with so good a wife ?" 

In Romeo and Juliet, the wise and entirely 
brave stratagem of the wife is brought to ruinous 
issue by the reckless impatience of her husband. 
In Winter's Tale, and in Cymbeline, the happi- 
ness and existence of two princely households, 
lost through long years, and imperilled to the 
death by the folly and obstinacy of the hus- 
bands, are redeemed at last by the queenly pa- 
tience and wisdom of the wives. In Measure 
for Measure, the injustice of the judges, and the 
corrupt cowardice of the brother, are opposed to 
the victorious truth and adamantine purity of a 
woman. In Coriolanus, the mother's counsel, 
acted upon in time ? would have saved her son 
from all evil; his momentary forgetfulness of it 
is his ruin; her prayer at last granted, saves him 
— not, indeed, from death, but from the curse 
of living as the destroyer of his country. 

And what shall I say of Julia, constant against 
the fickleness of a lover who is a mere wicked 
child ? — of Helena, against the petulance and in- 
sult of a careless youth ? — of the patience of 
Hero, the passion of Beatrice, and the calmly 
devoted wisdom of the " unlessoned girl," who 
appears among the helplessness, the blindness, 
and the vindictive passions of men, as a gentle 



30 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

angel, to save merely by her presence, and de- 
feat the worst intensities of crime by her smile ? 
Observe, further, among all the principal fig- 
ures in Shakespeare's plays, there is only one 
weak woman — Ophelia; and it is because she 
fails Hamlet at the critical moment, and is not, 
and cannot in her nature be, a guide to him when 
he needs her most, that all the bitter catastrophe 
follows. Finally, though there are three wicked 
women among the principal figures, Lady Mac- 
beth, Regan, and Goneril, they are felt at once 
to be frightful exceptions to the ordinary laws of 
life; fatal in their influence also in proportion to 
the power for good which they have abandoned. 



SHAKESPEARE S TESTIMONY TO WOMAN. 

Such, in broad light, is Shakespeare's testi- 
mony to the position and character of women in 
human life. He represents them as infallibly 
faithful and wise counsellors — incorruptibly just 
and pure examples — strong always to sanctify, 
even when they cannot save. 



SCOTT S IDEA OF WOMAN. 

Of any disciplined, or consistent character, 
earnest in a purpose wisely conceived, or dealing 
with forms of hostile evil, definitely challenged, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 3 1 

and resolutely subdued, there is no trace in his 
conceptions of men. Whereas in his imagina- 
tions of women — in the characters of Ellen 
Douglas, of Flora Maclvor, Rose Bradwardine, 
Catherine Seyton, Diana Vernon, Lilias Red- 
gauntlet, Alice Bridgenorth, Alice Lee, and 
Jeanie Deans — with endless varieties of grace, 
tenderness, and intellectual power, we find in all 
a quite infallible and inevitable sense of dignity 
and justice; a fearless, instant, and untiring self- 
sacrifice to even the appearance of duty, much 
more to its real claims; and, finally, a patient 
wisdom of deeply restrained affection, which 
does infinitely more than protect its objects from 
a momentary error; it gradually forms, animates, 
and exalts the characters of the unworthy lovers, 
until, at the close of the tale, we are just able, 
and no more, to take patience in hearing of their 
unmerited success. 

So that in all cases, with Scott as with Shake- 
speare, it is the woman who watches over, 
teaches, and guides the youth; it is never, by 
any chance, the youth who watches over or edu- 
cates his mistress. 



THE LADY OF DANTE S GREAT POEM. 

Next, take, though more briefly, graver and 
deeper testimony — that of the great Italians and 



32 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

Greeks. You know well the plan of Dante's 
great poem — that it is a love-poem to his dead 
lady, a song of praise for her watch over his 
soul. Stooping only to pity, never to love, she 
yet saves him from destruction — saves him from 
hell. He is going eternally astray in despair; 
she comes down from heaven to his help, and 
throughout the ascents of Paradise is his teacher, 
interpreting for him the most difficult truths, di- 
vine and human: and leading him, with rebuke 
upon rebuke, from star to star. 



POEM OF A KNIGHT OF PISA. 

I do not insist upon Dante's conception; if I 
began I could not cease: besides, you might 
think this a wild imagination of one poet's 
heart. So I will rather read to you a few verses 
of the deliberate writing of a knight of Pisa to 
his living lady, wholly characteristic of the feel- 
ing of all the noblest men of the thirteenth 
century, preserved among many other such rec- 
ords of knightly honor and love, which Dante 
Rossetti has gathered for us from among the 
early Italian poets. 

For lo ! thy law is passed 
That this my love should manifestly be 

To serve and honor thee : 
And so I do; and my delight is full, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 33 

Accepted for the servant of thy rule. 
Without almost, I am all rapturous, 

Since thus my will was set 
To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excellence: 
Nor ever seems it anything could rouse 

A pain or a regret, 
But on thee dwells mine every thought and sense : 
Considering that from thee all virtues spread 

As from a fountain head, — 
That in thy gift is wisdom's best avail, 

A nd honor without fail; 
With whom each sovereign good dwells separate, 
Fulfilling the perfection of thy state. 

Lady, since I conceived 
Thy pleasurable aspect in my heart, 

My life has been apart 
In shining brightness and the place of truth; 

Which till that time, good sooth, 
Groped among shadows in a darken'd place, 

Where many hours and days 
It hardly ever had rememberM good. 

But now my servitude 
Is thine, and I am full of joy and rest. 

A man from a wild beast 
Thou madest me, since for thy love I lived. 



THE GREEK HEROINES. 



You may think, perhaps, a Greek knight 
would have had a lower estimate of women 
than this Christian lover. His own spiritual 



34 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

subjection to them was indeed not so absolute; 
but as regards their own personal character, it 
was only because you could not have followed 
me so easily, that I did not take the Greek 
women instead of Shakespeare's; and instance, 
for chief ideal types of human beauty and 
faith, the simple mother's and wife's heart of 
Andromache; the divine, yet rejected wisdom 
of Cassandra; the playful kindness and simple 
princess-life of happy Nausicaa; the housewifely 
calm of that of Penelope, with its watch upon 
the sea; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly de- 
voted piety of the sister and daughter, in Anti- 
gone; the bowing down of Iphigenia, lamb-like 
and silent; and, finally, the expectation of the 
resurrection, made clear to the soul of the 
Greeks in the return from her grave of that Al- 
cestis, who, to save her husband, had passed 
calmly through the bitterness of death. 



THE TESTIMONY OF CHAUCER AND ALL GREAT 
MEN TO WOMAN'S GUIDING POWER. 

Now I could multiply witness upon witness of 
this kind upon you if I had time. I would take 
Chaucer, and show you why he wrote a Legend 
of Good Women; but no Legend of Good Men. 
I would take Spenser, and show you how all his 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 35 

fairy knights are sometimes deceived and some- 
times vanquished; but the soul of Una is never 
darkened, and the spear of Britomart is never 
broken. Nay, I could go back into the myth- 
ical teaching of the most ancient times, and 
show you how the great people, — by one of 
whose princesses it was appointed that the Law- 
giver of all the earth should be educated, rather 
than by his own kindred; — how that great 
Egyptian people, wisest then of nations, gave to 
their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a woman; 
and into her hand, for a symbol, the weaver's 
shuttle: and how the name and the form of that 
spirit, adopted, believed, and obeyed by the 
Greeks, became that Athena of the olive-helm 
and cloudy shield, to whose faith you owe, down 
to this date, whatever you hold most precious in 
art, in literature, or in types of national virtue. 

But I will not wander into this distant and 
mythical element; I will only ask you to give its 
legitimate value to the testimony of these great 
poets and men of the world, — consistent as you 
see it is on this head. I will ask you whether it 
can be supposed that these men, in the main 
work of their lives, are amusing themselves with 
a fictitious and idle view of the relations between 
man and woman; — nay, worse than fictitious or 
idle; for a thing may be imaginary, yet desir- 
able, if it were possible; but this, their ideal of 



36 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

women, is, according to our common idea of the 
marriage relation, wholly undesirable. The 
woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even to 
think, for herself. The man is always to be the 
wiser; he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the 
superior in knowledge and discretion, as in 
power. Is it not somewhat important to make 
up our minds on this matter? Are all these 
great men mistaken, or are we? Are Shake- 
speare and ^Eschylus, Dante, and Homer, mere- 
ly dressing dolls for us; or, worse than dolls, 
unnatural visions, the realization of which, were 
it possible, would bring anarchy into all house- 
holds and ruin into all affection ? 



THE EVIDENCE OF FACTS GIVEN BY THE HUMAN 
HEART. 

Nay, if you could suppose this, take lastly the 
evidence of facts, given by the human heart it- 
self. In all Christian ages which have been re- 
markable for their purity or progress, there has 
been absolute yielding of obedient devotion, by 
the lover, to his mistress. I say obedient — not 
merely enthusiastic and worshipping in imagina- 
tion, but entirely subject, receiving from the 
beloved woman, however young, not only the 
encouragement, the praise, and the reward of all 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2>7 

toil, but, so far as any choice is open, or any 
question difficult of decision, the direction of all 
toil. That chivalry, to the abuse and dishonor 
of which are attributable primarily whatever is 
cruel in war, unjust in peace, or corrupt and 
ignoble in domestic relations; and to the orig- 
inal purity and power of which we owe the de- 
fence alike of faith, of law, and of love; — that 
chivalry, I say, in its very first conception of 
honorable life, assumes the subjection of the 
young knight to the command — should it even 
be the command in caprice — of his lady. It as- 
sumes this, because its masters knew that the 
first and necessary impulse of every truly 
taught and knightly heart is this of blind service 
to its lady: that where that true faith and cap- 
tivity are not, all wayward and wicked passion 
must be; and that in this rapturous obedience 
to the single love of his youth, is the sanctifica- 
tion of all man's strength, and the continuance 
of all his purposes. And this, not because such 
obedience would be safe, or honorable, were it 
ever rendered to the unworthy; but because it 
ought to be impossible for every noble youth — 
it is impossible for every one rightly trained — 
to love any one whose gentle counsel he cannot 
trust, or whose prayerful command he can hesi- 
tate to obey. 

I do not insist by any further argument on 



38 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

this, for I think it should commend itself at once 
to your knowledge of what has been and to your 
feeling of what should be. You cannot think 
that the buckling on of the knight's armor by 
his lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic 
fashion. It is the type of an eternal truth — that 
the soul's armor is never well set to the heart 
unless a woman's hand has braced it; and it is 
only when she braces it loosely that the honor 
of manhood fails. Know you not those lovely 
lines — I would they were learned by all youth- 
ful ladies of England: 

" Ah wasteful woman! she who may 
On her sweet self set her own price, 
Knowing he cannot choose but pay — 
How has she cheapen'd Paradise! 
How given for naught her priceless gift, 
How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine, 
Which, spent with due, respective thrift, 
Had made brutes men, and men divine !"* 



TRUE MARRIAGE. 

Thus much, then, respecting the relations of 
lovers I believe you will accept. But what we 
too often doubt is the fitness of the continuance 
of such a relation throughout the whole of hu- 
man life. We think it right in the lover and 

* Coventry Patmore. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 39 

mistress, not in the husband and wife. That is 
to say, we think that a reverent and tender duty- 
is due to one whose affection we still doubt, and 
whose character we as yet do but partially and 
distantly discern; and that this reverence and 
duty are to be withdrawn when the affection has 
become wholly and limitlessly our own, and the 
character has been so sifted and tried that we 
fear not to intrust it with the happiness of our 
lives. Do you not see how ignoble this is, as 
well as how unreasonable ? Do you not feel that 
marriage — when it is marriage at all — is only the 
seal which marks the vowed transition of tem- 
porary into untiring service, and of fitful into 
eternal love ? 



WOMAN S FUNCTION GUIDING, NOT DETER- 
MINING. 

But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guid- 
ing function of the woman reconcilable with a 
true wifely subjection ? Simply in that it is a 
guiding, not a determining, function. Let me 
try to show you briefly how these powers seem 
to be rightly distinguishable. 

We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in 
speaking of the " superiority ,, of one sex to the 
other, as if they could be compared in similar 



40 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

things. Each has what the other has not: each 
completes the other, and is completed by the 
other: they are in nothing alike, and the happi- 
ness and perfection of both depends on each 
asking and receiving from the other what the 
other only can give. 

Now their separate characters are briefly these. 
The man's power is active, progressive, defen- 
sive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the 
discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for 
speculation and invention; his energy for adven- 
ture, for war and for conquest, wherever war is 
just, wherever conquest necessary. But the 
woman's power is for rule, not for battle, — and 
her intellect is not for invention or creation, but^ 
for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. 
She sees the qualities of things, their claims, and 
their places. Her great function is Praise: she 
enters into no contest, but infallibly judges the 
crown of contest. By her office and place she is 
protected from all danger and temptation. The 
man, in his rough work in open world, must en- 
counter all peril and trial: — to him, therefore, 
the failure, the offence, the inevitable error: 
often he must be wounded, or subdued, often 
misled, and always hardened. But he guards the 
woman from all this; within his house, as ruled 
by her, unless she herself has sought it, need 
enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 4 1 

error or offence. This is the true nature of 
home — it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not 
only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, 
and division. As it is not this, it is not home; 
so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate 
into it, and the inconsistently minded, unknown, 
unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is 
allowed by either husband or wife to cross the 
threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only 
a part of that outer world which you have roofed 
over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a 
sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the 
hearth, watched over by Household Gods, be- 
fore whose faces none can come but those whom 
they can receive with love, — so far as it is this, 
and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade 
and light, — shade as of the rock in a weary land, 
and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea; — 
so far it vindicates the name and fulfils the 
praise of home. 

And wherever a true wife comes, this home is 
always round her. The stars only may be over 
her head; the glowworm in the night-cold grass 
may be the only fire at her foot: but home is yet 
wherever she is; and for a noble woman it 
stretches far round her, better than ceiled with 
cedar, or painted with vermilion, shedding its 
quiet light far, for those who else were homeless. 

This, then, I believe to be — will you not ad- 



42 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

mit it to be, — the woman's true place and power. 
But do not you see that to fulfil this, she must 
— as far as one can use such terms of a human 
creature — be incapable of error ? So far as she 
rules, all must be right, or nothing is. She must 
be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, 
infallibly wise — wise, not for self-development, 
but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she 
may set herself above her husband, but that she 
may never fail from his side: wise, not with the 
narrowness of insolent and loveless pride, but 
with the passionate gentleness of an infinitely 
variable, because infinitely applicable, modesty 
of service — the true changefulness of woman. 
In that great sense — " La donna e mobile," not 
" Qual pium' al vento;" no, nor yet " Variable 
as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made;" 
but variable as the light, manifold in fair and 
serene division, that it may take the color of all 
that it falls upon, and exalt it. 



WHAT KIND OF EDUCATION IS TO FIT WOMAN 
FOR HER SPHERE. 

I have been trying, thus far, to show you 
what should be the place, and what the power 
of woman. Now, secondly, we ask, What kind 
of education is to fit her for these ? 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 43 

And if you indeed think this a true concep- 
tion of her office and dignity, it will not be diffi- 
cult to trace the course of education which 
would fit her for the one, and raise her to the 
other. 

The first of our duties to her — no thoughtful 
persons now doubt this — is to secure for her such 
physical training and exercise as may confirm her 
health, and perfect her beauty; the highest re- 
finement of that beauty being unattainable with- 
out splendor of activity and of delicate strength. 
To perfect her beauty, I say, and increase its 
power; it cannot be too powerful, nor shed its 
sacred light too far: only remember that all 
physical freedom is vain to produce beauty with- 
out a corresponding freedom of heart. There 
are two passages of that poet who is distin- 
guished, it seems to me, from all others — not by 
power, but by exquisite rzg/itness — which point 
you to the source, and describe to you, in a few 
syllables, the completion of womanly beauty. I 
will read the introductory stanzas, but the last 
is the one I wish you specially to notice: 

' * Three years she grew in sun and shower 3 
Then Nature said, a lovelier flower 

On earth was never sown. 
This child I to myself will take; 
She shall be mine, and I will make 

A lady of my own. 



44 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

"Myself will to my darling be 
Both law and impulse; and with me 

The girl, in rock and plain, 
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 
Shall feel an overseeing power 

To kindle, or restrain. 

" The floating clouds their state shall lend 
To her, for her the willow bend; 

Nor shall she fail to see 
Even in the motions of the storm, 
Grace that shall mould the maiden's form 

By silent sympathy. 

" And vital feelings of delight 
Shall rear her form to stately height, — 

Her virgin bosom swell. 
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give, 
While she and I together live, 

Here in this happy dell. ,, 

" Vital feelings of delight," observe. There 
are deadly feelings of delight; but the natural 
ones are vital, necessary to very life. 

And they must be feelings of delight, if they 
are to be vital. Do. not think you can make a 
girl lovely, if you do not make her happy. 
There is not one restraint you put on a good 
girl's nature — there is not one check you give to- 
ner instincts of affection or of effort — which 
will not be indelibly written on her features, 
with a hardness which is all the more painful 
because it takes away the brightness from the 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 45 

eyes of innocence, and the charm from the brow 
of virtue. 

This for the means; now note the end. Take 
from the same poet, in two lines, a perfect de- 
scription of womanly beauty: 

" A countenance in which did meet 
Sweet records, promises as sweet. ,, 

The perfect loveliness of a woman's counte- 
nance can only consist in that majestic peace,, 
which is founded in the memory of happy and 
useful years, — full of sweet records; and from 
the joining of this with that yet more majestic 
childishness, which is still full of change and 
promise; — opening always — modest at once, and 
bright, with hope of better things to be won, 
and to be bestowed. There is no old age where 
there is still that promise — it is eternal youth. 

Thus, then, you have first to mould her physi- 
cal frame, and then, as the strength she gains 
will permit you, to till and temper her mind with 
all knowledge and thoughts which tend to con- 
firm its natural instincts of justice, and refine its 
natural tact of love. 

All such knowledge should be given her as 
may enable her to understand, and even to aid, 
the work of men: and yet it should be given, 
not as knowledge, — not as if it were, or could 
be, for her an object to know; but only to feel, 



46 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

and to judge. It is of no moment, as a matter 
of pride or perfectness in herself, whether she 
knows many languages or one; but it is of the 
utmost, that she should be able to show kindness 
to a stranger, and to understand the sweetness 
of a stranger's tongue. It is of little conse- 
quence how many positions of cities she knows, 
or how many dates of events, or how many 
names of celebrated persons — it is not the ob- 
ject of education to turn a woman into a dic- 
tionary; but it is deeply necessary that she 
should be taught to enter with her whole per- 
sonality into the history she reads; to picture 
the passages of it vitally in her own bright 
imagination ; to apprehend, with her fine instincts, 
the pathetic circumstances and dramatic rela- 
tions, which the historian too often only eclipses 
by his reasoning, and disconnects by his arrange- 
ment; it is for her to trace the hidden equities 
of divine reward, and catch sight, through the 
darkness, of the fateful threads of woven fire 
that connect error with its retribution. But, 
chiefly of all, she is to be taught to extend the 
limits of her sympathy with respect to that his- 
tory which is being forever determined, as the 
moments pass in which she draws her peaceful 
breath; and to the contemporary calamity which, 
were it but rightly mourned by her, would recur 
no more hereafter. She is to exercise herself in 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. <\7 

imagining what would be the effects upon her 
mind and conduct, if she were daily brought 
into the presence of the suffering which is not 
the less real because shut from her sight. She 
is to be taught somewhat to understand the 
nothingness of the proportion which that little 
world, in which she lives and loves, bears to the 
world in which God lives and loves; — and sol- 
emnly she is to be taught to strive that her 
thoughts of piety may not be feeble in proportion 
to the number they embrace, nor her prayer more 
languid than it is for the momentary relief from 
pain of her husband or her child, when it is 
uttered for the multitudes of those who have 
none to love them, — and is " for all who are 
desolate and oppressed." 



LITERATURE FOR GIRLS. 

If there were to be any difference between a 
girl's education and a boy's, I should say that of 
the two the girl should be earlier led, as her in- 
tellect ripens faster, into deep and serious sub- 
jects; and that her range of literature should be, 
not more, but less frivolous, calculated to add 
the qualities of patience and seriousness to her 
natural poignancy of thought and quickness of 
wit; and also to keep her in a lofty and pure 



48 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

element of thought. I enter not now into any 
question of choice of books; only be sure that 
her books are not heaped up in her lap as they 
fall out of the package of the circulating library, 
wet with the last and lightest spray of the foun- 
tain of folly. 

Or even of the fountain of wit; for with respect 
to that sore temptation of novel-reading, it is 
not the badness of a novel that we should dread, 
but its over-wrought interest. The weakest ro- 
mance is not so stupefying as the lower forms of 
religious exciting literature, and the worst ro- 
mance is not so corrupting as false history, false 
philosophy, or false political essays. But the 
test romance becomes dangerous, if, by its ex- 
citement, it renders the ordinary course of life 
uninteresting, and increases the morbid thirst 
for useless acquaintance with scenes in which we 
shall never be called upon to act. 

I speak therefore of good novels only; and 
our modern literature is particularly rich in types 
of such. Well read, indeed, these books have 
serious use, being nothing less than treatises on 
moral anatomy and chemistry; studies of human 
nature in the elements of it. But I attach little 
weight to this function; they are hardly ever read 
with earnestness enough to permit them to ful- 
fil it. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 49 

WASTE OF VITAL POWER IN RELIGIOUS SENTI- 
MENT. 

I will not speak of the crimes which in past 
times have been committed in the name of 
Christ, nor of the follies which are at this hour 
held to be consistent with obedience of him; but 
I will speak of the morbid corruption and waste 
of vital power in religious sentiment, by which 
the pure strength of that which should be the 
guiding soul of every nation, the splendor of its 
youthful manhood, and spotless light of its 
maidenhood, is averted or cast away. You may 
see continually girls who have never been taught 
to do a single useful thing thoroughly; who can- 
not sew, who cannot cook, who cannot cast an 
account, nor prepare a medicine, whose whole 
life has been passed either in play or in pride; 
you will find girls like these, when they are 
earnest-hearted, cast all their innate passion of 
religious spirit, which was meant by God to sup- 
port them through the irksomeness of daily toil, 
into grievous and vain meditation over the mean- 
ing of the great Book, of which no syllable was 
ever yet to be understood but through a deed; 
all the instinctive wisdom and mercy of their 
womanhood made vain, and the glory of their 
pure consciences warped into fruitless agony 
concerning questions which the laws of common 



SO PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

serviceable life would have either solved for 
them in an instant, or kept out of their way. 
Give such a girl any true work that will make 
her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with 
the consciousness that her fellow creatures have 
indeed been the better for her day, and the pow- 
erless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform 
itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent 
peace. 



THE SIN OF JUDAS. 

Was any woman, do you suppose, ever the 
better for possessing diamonds ? But how many 
have been made base, frivolous, and miserable 
by desiring them ? Was ever man the better 
for having coffers full of gold ? But who shall 
measure the guilt that is incurred to fill them? 
Look into the history of any civilized nations; 
analyze, with reference to this one cause of 
crime and misery, the lives and thoughts of their 
nobles, priests, merchants, and men of luxurious 
life. Every other temptation is at last concen- 
trated into this; pride, and lust, and envy, and 
anger, all give up their strength to avarice. The 
sin of the whole world is essentially the sin of 
Judas. Men do not disbelieve their Christ; but 
they sell him. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 5 1 

THE INSTINCT OF COMMUNICATION A TEST OF 
THE USEFULNESS OF OUR POSSESSIONS. 

The moment we can use our possessions to 
any good purpose ourselves, the instinct of com- 
municating that use to others rises side by side 
with our power. If you can read a book rightly, 
you will want others to hear it; if you can enjoy 
a picture rightly, you will want others to see it. 
Once fix your desire on anything useless, and all 
the purest pride and folly in your heart will mix 
with the desire, and make you at last wholly in- 
human, a mere ugly lump of stomach and suck- 
ers, like a cuttle-fish. 



MUSIC AND PATIENCE. 

L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel ? 
The more need to practise. All one's life is a 
music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in 
time. But there must be no hurry. 

Kathleen. I'm sure there's no music in stop- 
ping in on a rainy day. 

L. There's no music in a " rest," Katie, that 
I know of: but there's the^making of music in it. 
And people are always missing that part of the 
life-melody; and scrambling on without count- 
ing — not that it's easy to count; but nothing on 



52 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

which so much depends ever is easy. People are 
always talking of perseverance, and courage, and 
fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthi- 
est part of fortitude, — and the rarest, too. I 
know twenty persevering girls for one patient one : 
but it is only that twenty-first who can do her 
work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience lies 
at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all 
powers. Hope herself ceases to be happiness, 
when Impatience companions her. 



CONVERSATION ON CRYSTALS AND THEIR LESSONS. 

Mary. But what ought we to think about the 
crystal ? Is there much to be thought — I mean, 
much to puzzle one ? 

L. I don't know what you call "much." It 
is a long time since I met with anything in which 
there was little. There's not much in this, per- 
haps. The crystal must be either dirty or clean 
— and there's an end. So it is with one's hands, 
and with one's heart — only you can wash your 
hands without changing them, but not hearts, 
nor crystals. On the whole, while you are young, 
it will be as well to take care that your hearts 
don't want much washing; for they may perhaps 
need wringing also, when they do. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 53 

{A udience doubtful and uncomfortable. Luc I ll a 
at last takes courage.) 

Lucilla. Oh ! but surely, sir, we cannot 
make our hearts clean ? 

L. Not easily, Lucilla; so you had better keep 
them so, when they are. 

Lucilla. When they are! But, sir — 

L. Well? 

Lucilla. Sir — surely — are we not told that 
they are all evil ? 

L. Wait a little, Lucilla; that is difficult ground 
you are getting upon; and we must keep to our 
crystals, till at least we understand what their 
good and evil consists in; they may help us after- 
wards to some useful hints about our own. I 
said that their goodness consisted chiefly in 
purity of substance, and perfectness of form: 
but those are rather the effects of their goodness, 
than the goodness itself. The inherent virtues 
of the crystals, resulting in these outer conditions, 
might really seem to be best described in the 
words we should use respecting living creatures 
— " force of heart" and " steadiness of purpose." 

Mary. Oh, if we could but understand the 
meaning of it all! 

L. We can understand all that is good for us. 
It is just as true for us, as for the crystal, that 
the nobleness of life depends on its consistency, 
— clearness of purpose, — quiet and ceaseless 



54 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

energy. All doubt, and repenting, and botching, 
and retouching, and wondering what it will be 
best to do next, are vice, as well as misery. 

Mary (7?iuck wondering). But must not one 
repent when one does wrong, and hesitate when 
one can't see one's way ? 

L. You have no business at all to do wrong; 
nor to get into any way that you cannot see. 
Your intelligence should always be far in ad- 
vance of your act. Whenever you do not know 
what you are about, you are sure to be doing 
wrong. 

Kathleen. Oh dear, but I never know what 
I am about! 

L. Very true, Katie, but it is a great deal to 
know, if you know that. And you find that 
you have done wrong afterward; and perhaps 
some day you may begin to know, or at least, 
think, what you are about. 

The great difficulty is always to open people's 
eyes: to touch their feelings, and break their 
hearts, is easy; the difficult thing is to break 
their heads. What does it matter, as long as 
they remain stupid, whether you change their 
feelings or not ? You cannot be always at their 
elbow to tell them what is right: and they may 
just do as wrong as before, or worse; and their 
best intentions merely make the road smooth 
for them, — you know where. For it is not the 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 55 

place itself that is paved with them, as people 
say so often. You can't pave the bottomless 
pit; but you may the road to it. 

May. Well, but if people do as well as they 
can see how, surely that is the right for them, 
isn't it ? 

L. No, May, not a bit of it; right is right, and 
wrong is wrong. It is only the fool who does 
wrong, and says she " did it for the best." And 
if there's one sort of person in the world that 
the Bible speaks harder of than another, it is 
fools. Their particular and chief way of saying 
" There is no God" is this, of declaring that 
whatever their " public opinion" may be, is right: 
and that God's opinion is of no consequence. 

May. But surely nobody can always know 
what is right ? 

L. Yes, you always can, for to-day; and if 
you do what you see of to-day, you will see 
more of it, and more clearly, to-morrow. 

A great many of young ladies' difficulties arise 
from their falling in love with a wrong person: 
but they have no business to let themselves fall 
in love, till they know he is the right one. 

Dora. How many thousands ought he to 
have a year ? 

L. {disdaining reply). There are, of course, 
certain crises of fortune when one has to take 
care of oneself, and mind shrewdly what one is 



56 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

about. There is never any real doubt about the 
path, but you may have to walk very slowly. 

Mary. And if one is forced to do a wrong 
thing by some one who has authority over you ? 

No one can be forced to do a wrong thing, for 
the guilt is in the will: but you may any day be 
forced to do a fatal thing, as you might be forced 
to take poison; the remarkable law of nature in 
such cases being that it is always unfortunate 
you who are poisoned, and not the person who 
gives you the dose. It is a very strange law, but 
it is law. Nature merely sees to the carrying 
out of the normal operation of arsenic. She 
never troubles herself to ask who gave it you. 
So also you may be starved to death, morally as 
well as physically, by other people's faults. Do 
you think that your goodness comes all by your 
own contriving ? or that you are gentle and kind 
because your dispositions are naturally more 
angelic than those of the poor girls who are 
playing, with wild eyes, on the dust-heaps in the 
alleys of our great towns; and who will one day 
fill their prisons, — or, better, their graves ? 
Heaven only knows where they, and we who 
have cast them there, shall stand at last. 

L. How can you possibly speak any truth out 
of such a heart as you have ? It is wholly 
deceitful. 

Lucilla. Oh! no, no; I don't mean that way; 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 5? 

I don't mean that it makes me tell lies, quite 
out. 

L. Only that it tells lies within you ? 

Lucilla. Yes. 

L. Then, outside of it, you know what is true, 
and say so; and I may trust the outside of your 
heart; but within, it is all foul and false. Is 
that the way ? 

Lucilla. I suppose so: I don't understand it,, 
quite. 

L. There is no occasion for understanding it; 
but do you feel it ? Are you sure that your heart 
is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
wicked ? 

Lucilla (much relieved by finding herself 
among phrases with which she is acquainted). Yes> 
sir. I'm sure of that. 

L. (pensively). I'm sorry for it, Lucilla. 

Lucilla. So am I, indeed. 

L. What are you sorry with, Lucilla ? 

Lucilla. Sorry with, sir? 

L. Yes; I mean, where do you feel sorry? in 
your feet ? 

Lucilla (laughing a little). No, sir, of course. 

L. In your shoulders, then ? 

Lucilla. No, sir. 

L. You are sure of that? Because I fear, 
sorrow in the shoulders would not be worth 
much. 



$8 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

Lucilla. I suppose I feel it in my he&aK f * * 
really am sorry. 

L. If you really are! Do you mean to say 
that you are sure you are utterly wicked, and 
yet do not care ? 

Lucilla. No, indeed; I have cried about it 
often. 

L. Well, then, you are sorry in your heart ? 

Lucilla. Yes, when the sorrow is worth any- 
thing. 

L. Even if it be not, it cannot be anywhere 
else but there. It is not the crystalline lens of 
your eyes which is sorry when you cry ? 

Lucilla. No, sir, of course. 

L. Then, have you two hearts; one of which 
is wicked, and the other grieved ? or is one side 
of it sorry for the other side ? 

Lucilla {weary of cross-examination, and a 
little vexed). Indeed, sir, you know I can't un- 
derstand it; but you know how it is written — 
" another law in my members, warring against 
the law of my mind." 

L. Yes, Lucilla, I know how it is written; but 
I do not see that it will help us to know that, if 
we neither understand what is written, nor feel 
it. And you will not get nearer to the meaning 
of one verse, if, as soon as you are puzzled by 
it you escape to another, introducing three new 
words — "law," "members," and "mind;" not 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 59 

one of which you at present know the meaning 
of; and respecting which you probably never 
will be much wiser; since men like Montesquieu 
and Locke have spent great part of their lives in 
endeavoring to explain two of them. 

Lucilla. Oh ! please, sir, ask somebody else.. 

L. If I thought any one else could answer 
better than you, Lucilla, I would; but suppose I 
try, instead, myself, to explain your feelings to 
you? 

Lucilla. Oh, yes; please do. 

L. Is it not so with the body as well as the 
soul ? 

L. A skull, for instance, is not a beautiful 
thing ? 

L. And if you all could see in each other, 
with clear eyes, whatever God sees beneath those 
fair faces of yours, you would not like it ? 

L. Nor would it be good for you ? 

L. The probability being that what God does 
not allow you to see, he does not wish you to 
see: nor even to think of ? 

L. It would not at all be good for you, for 
instance, whenever you were washing your faces, 
and braiding your hair, to be thinking of the 
shapes of the jawbones, and of the cartilage of 
the nose, and of the jagged sutures of the scalp? 

L. Still less, to see through a clear glass the 
daily processes of nourishment and decay ? 



6o PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

Ascertain clearly what is wrong with you; and 
so far a-s you know any means of mending it, 
take those means, and have done; when you are 
examining yourself, never call yourself merely a 
"sinner," that is very cheap abuse; and utterly 
useless. You may even get to like it, and be 
proud of it. But call yourself a liar, a coward, 
a sluggard, a glutton, or an evil-eyed, jealous 
wretch, if you indeed find yourself to be in any 
wise any of these. Take steady means to check 
yourself in whatever fault you have ascertained, 
and justly accused yourself of. And as soon as 
you are in active way of mending, you will be no 
more inclined to moan over an undefined cor- 
ruption. For the rest, you will find it less easy 
to uproot faults, than to choke them by gaining 
virtues. Do not think of your faults; still less 
of others* faults; in every person who comes 
near you, look for what is good and strong: 
honor that; rejoice in it; and, as you can, try to 
imitate it; and your faults will drop off, like 
dead leaves, when their time comes. If, on 
looking back, your whole life should seem rugged 
as a palm-tree stem; still, never mind, so long as 
it has been growing; and has its grand green 
shade of leaves, and weight of honeyed fruit, at 
top. And even if you cannot find much good 
in yourself at last, think that it does not much 
matter to the universe either what you were, or 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 6 1 

are; think how many people are noble, if you 
cannot be; and rejoice in their nobleness. An 
immense quantity of modern confession of sin, 
even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism; 
which will rather gloat over its own evil, than 
lose the centralization of its interest in itself. 

Mary. But then, if we ought to forget our- 
selves so much, how did the old Greek proverb 
" Know thyself " come to be so highly esteemed ? 

L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; 
Apollo's proverb, and the sun's; — but do you 
think you can know yourself by looking info 
yourself ? Never. You can know what you are 
only by looking out of yourself. Measure your 
own powers with those of others; compare your 
own interests with those of others; try to under- 
stand what you appear to them, as well as what 
they appear to you; and judge of yourselves, in 
all things, relatively and subordinately; not posi- 
tively; starting always with a wholesome convic- 
tion of the probability that there is nothing 
particular about you. For instance, some of 
you perhaps think you can write poetry. Dwell 
on your own feelings and doings: — and you will 
soon think yourself Tenth Muses: but forget 
your own feelings; and try, instead, to under- 
stand a line or two of Chaucer or Dante; and 
you will soon begin to feel yourselves very fool- 
ish girls — which is much like the fact. 



62 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

So, something which befalls you may seem a 
great misfortune; — you meditate over its effects 
on you personally; and begin to think that it is 
a chastisement, or a warning, or a this or that or 
the other of profound significance; and that all 
the angels in heaven had left their business for 
a little while, that they may watch its effects on 
your mind. But give up this egotistic indulgence 
of your fancy; examine a little what misfortunes, 
greater a thousandfold, are happening, every 
second, to twenty times worthier persons; and 
3'our self-consciousness will change into pity and 
humility; and you will know yourself, so far as 
to understand that " there hath nothing taken 
thee but what is common to man." 

The clustered texts about the human heart, 
insist, as a body, not on any inherent corruption 
in all hearts, but on the terrific distinction be- 
tween the bad and the good ones. " A good 
man, out of the good treasure of his heart, 
bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil 
man, out of the evil treasure, bringeth forth that 
which is evil." " They on the rock are they 
which, in an honest and good heart, having 
heard the word, keep it." " Delight thyself in 
the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of 
thine heart." " The wicked have bent their 
bow, that they may privily shoot at him that is 
upright in heart." And so on; they are count- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 63 

less, to the same effect. And, for all of us, the 
question is not at all to ascertain how much or 
how little corruption there is in human nature; 
but to ascertain whether, out of all the mass of 
that nature, we are of the sheep or the goat 
breed; whether we are people of upright heart, 
being shot at, or people of crooked heart, shoot- 
ing. And, of all the texts bearing on the subject, 
this, which is a quite simple and practical order, 
is the one you have chiefly to hold in mind. 
u Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of 
it are the issues of life." 

Lucilla. And yet, how inconsistent the texts 
seem. 

L. Nonsense, Lucilla! do you think the uni- 
verse is bound to look consistent to a girl of 
fifteen ? 



SELF-SACRIFICE. 

L. The self-sacrifice of a human being is not 
a lovely thing, Violet. It is often a necessary 
and noble thing; but no form nor degree of 
suicide can be ever lovely. 

Violet. But self-sacrifice is not suicide! 

L. What is it then ? 

Violet. Giving up one's self for another. 



64 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

L. Well; and what do you mean by "giving 
up one's self " ? 

Violet. Giving up one's tastes, one's feelings, 
one's time, one's happiness, and so on, to make 
others happy. 

L. I hope you will never marry anybody, Vio- 
let, who expects you to make him happy in that 
way. 

Violet (hesitating). In what way ? 

L. By giving up your tastes, and sacrificing 
your feelings, and happiness. 

Violet. No, no, I don't mean that; but you 
know, for other people, one must. 

L. For people who don't love you, and whom 
you know nothing about? Be it so; but how 
does this " giving up" differ from suicide then ? 

Violet. Why, giving up one's pleasures is not 
killing one's self ? 

L. Giving up wrong pleasure is not; neither 
is it self-sacrifice, but self-culture. But giving 
up right pleasure is. If you surrender the pleas- 
ure of walking, your foot will wither; you may 
as well cut it off: if you surrender the pleasure 
of seeing, your eyes will soon be unable to bear 
the light; you may as well pluck them out. And 
to maim yourself is partly to kill yourself. Do 
but go on maiming, and you will soon slay. 

Violet. But why do you make me think of 
that verse then, about the foot and the eye ? 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 65 

L. You are indeed commanded to cut off and 
to pluck out, if foot or eye offend you; but why 
should they offend you ? 

Violet. I don't know; I never quite under- 
stood that. 

L. Yet it is a sharp order; one needing to be 
well understood if it is to be well obeyed! 
When Helen sprained her ankle the other day, 
you saw how strongly it had to be bandaged; 
that is to say, prevented from all work, to re- 
cover it. But the bandage was not " lovely." 

Violet. No, indeed. 

L. And if her foot had been crushed, or dis- 
eased, or snake-bitten, instead of sprained, it 
might have been needful to cut it off. But the 
amputation would not have been "lovely." 

Violet. No. 

L. Well, if eye and foot are dead already, and 
betray you — if the light that is in you be dark- 
ness, and your feet run into mischief, or are 
taken in the snare, — it is indeed time to pluck 
out, and cut off, I think: but, so crippled, you 
can never be what you might have been other- 
wise. You enter into life, at best, halt or 
maimed; and the sacrifice is not beautiful, 
though necessary. . . . 

L. I mean, and always have meant, simply 
this, Dora; — that the will of God respecting us 
is that we shall live by each other's happiness, 



66 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

and life; not by each other's misery, or death. 
A child may have to die for its parents; but the 
purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for 
them; — that, not by its sacrifice, but by its 
strength, its joy, its force of being, it shall be to 
them renewal of strength; and as the arrow in 
the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right 
relations. Men help each other by their joy, 
not by their sorrow. They are not intended to 
slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen 
themselves for each other. And among the 
many apparently beautiful things which turn, 
through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not 
sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self- 
sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as 
one of the fatalest. They have so often been 
taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as 
such; and foolishly to hope that good may be 
brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven 
itself has set the stamp of evil, that we may 
avoid it, — that they accept pain and defeat as if 
these were their appointed portion; never un- 
derstanding that their defeat is not the less to be 
mourned because it is more fatal to their ene- 
mies than to them. The one thing that a good 
man has to do, and to see done, is justice; he is- 
neither to slay himself nor others causelessly; so 
far from denying himself, since he is pleased by 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. t)f 

good, he is to do his utmost to get his pleasure 
accomplished. 

In the daily course and discipline of right life, 
we must continually and reciprocally submit and 
surrender in all kind and courteous and affec- 
tionate ways: and these submissions and minis- 
tries to each other, of which you all know (none 
better) the practice and the preciousness, are as 
good for the yielder as the receiver : they 
strengthen and perfect as much as they soften 
and refine. 



GOD A KIND FATHER. 

God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the 
places where he wishes us to be employed; and 
that employment is truly " our Father's busi- 
ness." He chooses work for every creature 
which will be delightful to them, if they do it 
simply and humbly. He gives us always strength 
enough, and sense enough, for what he wants 
us to do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle 
ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may al- 
ways be sure, whatever we are doing, that we 
cannot be pleasing him, if we are not happy 
ourselves. Now, away with you, children; and 
be as happy as you can. And when you cannot, 
at least don't plume yourselves upon pouting. 



68 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 



FALSE MODESTY. 

If young ladies really do not want to be seen,, 
they should take care not to let their eyes flash 
when they dislike what people say: and, more 
than that, it is all nonsense from beginning to 
end, about not wanting to be seen. I don't 
know any more tiresome flower in the borders 
than your especially " modest" snowdrop; which 
one always has to stoop down and take all sorts 
of tiresome trouble with, and nearly break its 
poor little head off, before you can see it; and 
then, half of it is not worth seeing. Girls should 
be like daisies; nice and white, with an edge of 
red, if you look close; making the ground bright 
wherever they are; knowing simply and quietly 
that they do it, and are meant to do it, and that 
it would be very wrong if they didn't do it. 
Not want to be seen, indeed ! 



DRESS, AND TEACH OTHERS TO DRESS. 

Always dress yourselves beautifully — not 
finely, unless on occasion; but then very finely 
and beautifully too. Also, you are to dress as 
many other people as you can; and to teach 
them how to dress, if they don't know; and to 
consider every ill-dressed woman or child whom 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 69 

you see anywhere, as a personal disgrace, and to 
get at them somehow, until everybody is as 
beautifully dressed as birds. 



THE CONVENTUAL SYSTEM. 

There's one point of possible good in the con- 
ventual system, which is always attractive to 
young girls; and the idea is a very dangerous 
one; — the notion of a merit, or exalting virtue, 
consisting in a habit of meditation on the 
" things above," or things of the next world. 
Now it is quite true, that a person of beautiful 
mind, dwelling on whatever appears to them 
most desirable and lovely in a possible future, 
will not only pass their time pleasantly, but will 
even acquire, at last, a vague and wildly gentle 
charm of manner and feature, which will give 
them an air of peculiar sanctity in the eyes of 
others. Whatever real or apparent good there 
may be in this result, I want you to observe, that 
we have no real authority for the reveries to 
which it is owing. We are told nothing dis- 
tinctly of the heavenly world; except that it 
will be free from sorrow, and pure from sin. 

Now, whatever indulgence may be granted to 
amiable people for pleasing themselves in this- 
innocent way, it is beyond question, that to se- 



70 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

elude themselves from the rough duties of life, 
merely to write religious romances, or, as in 
most cases, merely to dream them, without tak- 
ing so much trouble as is implied in writing, 
ought not to be received as an act of heroic vir- 
tue. 

But, observe, even in admitting thus much, I 
have assumed that the fancies are just and beau- 
tiful, though fictitious. Now, what right have 
any of us to assume that our own fancies will 
assuredly be either the one or the other ? That 
they delight us, and appear lovely to us, is no 
real proof of its not being wasted time to form 
them: and we may surely be led somewhat to 
distrust our judgment of them by observing 
what ignoble imaginations have sometimes suffi- 
ciently, or even enthusiastically, occupied the 
hearts of others. 

The hope of attaining a higher religious posi- 
tion, which induces us to encounter, for its ex- 
alted alternative, the risk of unhealthy error, is 
often, as I said, founded more on pride than 
piety; and those who, in modest usefulness, have 
accepted what seemed to them here, the lowliest 
place in the kingdom of their Father, are not, I 
believe, the least likely to receive hereafter the 
command, then unmistakable, " Friend, go up 
higher." 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 71 



THE PUREST SOULS THE TRUEST. 

It seems to me, on the whole, that the feelings 
of the purest and most mightily passioned human 
souls are likely to be the truest. Not, indeed, 
if they do not desire to know the truth, or blind 
themselves to it that they may please themselves 
with passion; for then they are no longer pure: 
but if, continually seeking and accepting the 
truth as far as it is discernible, they trust their 
Maker for the integrity of the instincts he has 
gifted them with, and rest in the sense of a 
higher truth which they cannot demonstrate, I 
think they will be most in the right, so. 



GRADATION OF LIFE. 

You will find it impossible to separate the 
idea of gradated manifestation from that of the 
vital power. Things are not either wholly alive, 
or wholly dead. They are less or more alive. 
Take the nearest, most easily examined instance 
— the life of a flower. Notice what a different 
degree and kind of life there is in the calyx and 
the corolla. The calyx is nothing but the swad- 
dling-clothes of the flower; the child-blossom is 
bound up in it, hand and foot; guarded in it, 
restrained by it, till the time of birth. The 



72 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

shell is hardly more subordinated to the germ 
in the egg, than the calyx to the blossom. It 
bursts at last; but it never lives as the corolla 
does. It may fall at the moment its task is ful- 
filled, as in the poppy; or wither gradually, as in 
the buttercup; or persist in a ligneous apathy, 
after the flower is dead, as in the rose; or har- 
monize itself so as to share in the aspect of the 
real flower, as in the lily; but it never shares in 
the corolla's bright passion of life. And the gra- 
dations which thus exist between the different 
members of organic creatures, exist no less be- 
tween the different ranges of organism. We 
know no higher or more energetic life than our 
own; but there seems to me this great good in 
the idea of gradation of life — it admits the idea 
of a life above us, in other creatures, as much 
nobler than ours, as our is nobler than that of 
the dust. 

You will always find that, in proportion to the 
earnestness of our own faith, its tendency to ac- 
cept a spiritual personality increases: and that 
the most vital and beautiful Christian temper 
rests joyfully in its conviction of the multitudi- 
nous ministry of living angels, infinitely varied in 
rank and power. You all know one expression 
of the purest and happiest form of such faith, as 
it exists in modern times, in Richter's lovely 
illustrations of the Lord's Prayer. The real and 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 73 

living death-angel, girt as a pilgrim for journey, 
and softly crowned with flowers, beckons at the 
dying mother's door; child-angels sit talking 
face to face with mortal children, among the 
flowers; — hold them by their little coats, lest 
they fall on the stairs; — whisper dreams of 
heaven to them, leaning over their pillows; carry 
the sound of the church bells for them far 
through the air; and even descending lower in 
service, fill little cups with honey, to hold out 
to the weary bee. 



CHARITY IN JUDGING THE CONVICTIONS OF 
OTHERS. 

The more readily we admit the possibility of 
our own cherished convictions being mixed with 
error, the more vital and helpful whatever is 
right in them will become: and no error is so 
conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not 
allow us to err, though he has allowed all other 
men to do so. There may be doubt of the 
meaning of other visions, but there is none re- 
specting that of the dream of St. Peter; and 
you may trust the Rock of the Church's Foun- 
dation for true interpreting, when he learned 
from it that, " in every nation, he that feareth 
God and worketh righteousness, is accepted 



?4 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

with Him." See that you understand what that 
righteousness means; and set hand to it stoutly: 
you will always measure your neighbors' creed 
kindly, in proportion to the substantial fruits of 
your own. Do not think you will ever get harm 
by striving to enter into the faith of others, and 
to sympathize, in imagination, with the guiding 
principles of their lives. So only can you justly 
love them, or pity them, or praise. 



RIGHT ART A TEACHER. 

Every work of right art has a tendency to re- 
produce the ethical state which first developed 
it. Music, which of all the arts is most directly 
ethical in origin, is also the most direct in power 
of discipline; the first, the simplest, the most 
effective of all instruments of moral instruction; 
while in the failure and betrayal of its functions, 
it becomes the subtlest aid of moral degrada- 
tion. Music is thus, in her health, the teacher 
of perfect order, and is the voice of the obedi- 
ence of angels, and the companion of the course 
of the spheres of heaven; and in her depravity 
she is also the teacher of perfect disorder and 
disobedience, and the Gloria in Excelsis be- 
comes the Marseillaise. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 75 

HEATHEN POETS AND PHILOSOPHERS. 

Horace is just as true and simple in his relig- 
ion as Wordsworth; but all power of under- 
standing any of the honest classic poets has 
been taken away from most English gentlemen 
by the mechanical drill in verse-writing at 
school. Throughout the whole of their lives 
afterward, they never can get themselves quit of 
the notion that all verses were written as an ex- 
ercise, and that Minerva was only a conven- 
ient word for the last of an hexameter, and 
Jupiter for the last but one. 

It is impossible that any notion can be more 
fallacious or more misleading in its conse- 
quences. All great song, from the first day 
when human lips contrived syllables, has been 
sincere song. With deliberate didactic purpose 
the tragedians — with pure and native passion 
the lyrists — fitted their perfect words to their 
dearest faiths. " Operosa parvus carmina fingo." 
" I, little thing that I am, weave my laborious 
songs" as earnestly as the bee among the bells 
of thyme on the Matin mountains. Yes, and 
he dedicates his favorite pine to Diana, and he 
chants his autumnal hymn to the Faun that 
guards his fields, and he guides the noble youths 
and maids of Rome in their choir to Apollo, and 
he tells the farmer's little girl that the Gods will 



76 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

love, her, though she has only a handful of salt 
and meal to give them — just as earnestly as ever 
English gentlemen taught Christian faith to 
English youth, in England's truest days. 

Then, lastly, the creed of the philosophers or 
sages varied according to the character and 
knowledge of each: — their relative acquaintance 
with the secrets of natural science — their intel- 
lectual and sectarian egotism — and their mystic 
or monastic tendencies, for there is a classic as 
well as a mediaeval monasticism. They ended 
in losing the life of Greece in play upon words; 
but we owe to their early thought some of the 
soundest ethics, and the foundation of the best 
practical laws, yet known to mankind. 

Such was the general vitality of the heathen 
creed in its strength. Of its direct influence on 
conduct, it is, as I said, impossible for me to 
speak now; only, remember always, in endeavor- 
ing to form a judgment of it, that what of good 
or right the heathens did, they did looking for 
no reward. The purest forms of our own re- 
ligion have always consisted in sacrificing less 
things to win greater; — time, to win eternity, — 
the world, to win the skies. The order, " sell 
that thou hast," is not given without the prom- 
ise, " thou shalt have treasure in heaven." 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 77 



THE SHAPING POWER OF THE SPIRIT. 

It is of great consequence that you should fix 
in your minds — and hold, against the baseness of 
mere materialism on the one hand, and against 
the fallacies of controversial speculation on the 
other — the certain and practical sense of the 
word " spirit;" — the sense in which you all know 
that its reality exists, as the power which 
shaped you into your shape, and by which you 
love, and hate, when you have received that 
shape. You need not fear, on the one hand, 
that either the sculpturing or the loving power 
can ever be beaten down by the philosophers 
into a metal, or evolved by them into a gas; but, 
on the other hand, take care that you yourselves, 
in trying to elevate your conception of it, do not 
lose its truth in a dream, or even in a word. 
Beware always of contending for words; you 
will find them not easy to grasp, if you know 
them in several languages. This very word, 
which is so solemn in your mouths, is one of the 
most doubtful. In Latin it means little more 
than breathing, and may mean merely accent; 
in French it is not breath, but wit, and our 
neighbors are therefore obliged, even in their 
most solemn expressions, to say " wit " when 
we say "ghost." 

The philosophers are very humorous in their 



78 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

ecstasy of hope about it; but the real interest 
of their discoveries in this direction is very 
small to human-kind. It is quite true that the 
tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, and 
that the surface of the water in a ditch vibrates 
too; but the ditch hears nothing for all that; 
and my hearing is still to me as blessed a mys- 
tery as ever, and the interval between the ditch 
and me, quite as great. If the trembling sound 
in my ears was once of the marriage-bell which 
began my happiness, and is now of the passing- 
bell which ends it, the difference between those 
two sounds to me cannot be counted by the 
number of concussions. 

Beyond, and entirely unaffected by, any ques- 
tionings of this kind, there are, therefore, two 
plain facts which we should all know: first, that 
there is a power which gives their several shapes 
to things, or capacities of shape; and secondly, 
a power which gives them their several feelings, 
or capacities of feeling; and that we can increase 
or destroy both of these at our will. By care 
and tenderness, we can extend the range of 
lovely life in plants and animals; by our neglect 
and cruelty, we can arrest it, and bring pesti- 
lence in its stead. Again, by right discipline we 
can increase our strength of noble will and pas- 
sion, or destroy both. What precise meaning 
we ought to attach to expressions such as that 



PEARLS FOR YOU A 7 J LADIES. 79 

of the prophecy to the four winds that the dry 
bones might be breathed upon, and might live, 
or why the presence of the vital power should 
be dependent on the chemical action of the air, 
and its awful passing away materially signified 
by the rendering up of that breath or ghost, we 
cannot at present know, and need not at any 
time dispute. What we assuredly know is that 
the states of life and death are different, and 
the first more desirable than the other, and by 
effort attainable, whether we understand being 
" born of the spirit " to signify having the breath 
of heaven in our flesh, or its power in our 
hearts. 



THE BIRD EMBODIED SPIRIT. 

The bird is little more than a drift of the air 
brought into form by plumes; the air is in all its 
quills, it breathes through its whole frame and 
flesh, and glows with air in its flying, like blown 
flame: it rests upon the air, subdues it, surpasses 
it, outraces it; — is the air, conscious of itself, 
conquering itself, ruling itself. 

Into the throat of the bird is given the voice 
of the air. All that in the wind itself is weak, 
wild, useless in sweetness, is knit together in its 
song. As we may imagine the wild form of the 



80 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

cloud closed into the perfect form of the bird's 
wings, so the wild voice of the cloud into its 
ordered and commanded voice; unwearied, rip- 
pling through the clear heaven in its gladness, in- 
terpreting all intense passion through the soft 
spring nights, bursting into acclaim and rapture 
of choir at daybreak, or lisping and twittering 
among the boughs and hedges through heat of 
day, like little winds that only make the cowslip 
bells shake, and ruffle the petals of the wild 
rose. 

Also, upon the plumes of the bird are put the 
colors of the air: on these the gold of the cloud, 
that cannot be gathered by any covetousness; 
the rubies of the clouds, that are not the price 
of Athena, but are Athena; the vermilion of the 
cloud-bar, and the flame of the cloud-rest, and 
the snow of the cloud, and its shadow, and the 
melted blue of the deep wells of the sky — alL 
these, seized by the creating spirit, and woven 
by Athena herself into films and threads of 
plume; with wave on wave following and fading 
along breast, and throat, and opened wings, in- 
finite as the dividing of the foam and the sifting: 
of the sea-sand; — even the white down of the 
cloud seeming to flutter up between the stronger 
plumes, seen, but too soft for touch. 

And so the Spirit of the air is put into, and 
Upon, this created form; and it becomes, through 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 8 1 

twenty centuries, the symbol of divine help, de- 
scending, as the Fire, to speak, but as the Dove, 
to bless. 



MODESTY, THE MEASURING VIRTUE. 

Modesty is " the measuring virtue," the virtue 
of modes or limits. She is, indeed, said to be only 
the third or youngest of the children of the cardi- 
nal virtue, Temperance; and apt to be despised, 
being more given to arithmetic, and other vulgar 
studies (Cinderella-like) than her elder sisters: 
but she is useful in the household, and arrives at 
great results with her yard-measure and slate- 
pencil — a pretty little Marchande des Modes, 
cutting her dress always according to the silk (if 
this be the proper feminine reading of " coat ac- 
cording to the cloth "), so that, consulting with 
her carefully of a morning, men get to know not 
only their income, but their inbeing — to know 
the?nselves, that is, in a gauger's manner, round 
and up and down — surface and contents; what 
is in them, and what may be got out of them; 
and, in fine, their entire canon of weight and 
capacity. That yard-measure of Modesty's, lent 
to those who will use it, is a curious musical 
reed, and will go round and round waists that 
are slender enough, with latent melody in every 



$2 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

joint of it, the dark root only being soundless. 
For, indeed, to all true modesty the necessary 
business is not inlook, but outlook, and espe- 
cially up\oo\\ it is only her sister, Shamefaced- 
ness, who is known by the drooping lashes — 
Modesty, quite otherwise, by her large eyes full 
of wonder; for she never contemns herself, nor 
is ashamed of herself, but forgets herself — at 
least until she has done something worth mem- 
ory. It is easy to peep and potter about one's 
own deficiencies in a quiet immodest discontent; 
but Modesty is so pleased with other people's 
doings, that she has no leisure to lament her 
own: and thus, knowing the fresh feeling of con- 
tentment, unstained with thought of self, she 
does not fear being pleased, when there is cause, 
with her own rightness, as with another's, saying 
calmly, " Be it mine, or yours, or whose else's it 
may, it is no matter; — this also is well." But 
the right to say such a thing depends on contin- 
ual reverence, and manifold sense of failure. If 
you have known yourself to have failed, you 
may trust, when it comes, the strange conscious- 
ness of success; if you have faithfully loved the 
noble work of others, you need not fear to speak 
with respect of things duly done, of your own. 

The first function of Modesty, then, being 
this recognition of place, her second is the rec- 
ognition of law, and delight in it, for the sake of 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 83 

law itself, whether her part be to assert it, or 
obey. For as it belongs to all immodesty to 
defy or deny law, and assert privilege and license, 
according to its own pleasure (it being therefore 
rightly called " insolent" that is, " custom-break- 
ing," violating some usual and appointed order 
to attain for itself greater forwardness or power), 
so it is the habit of all modesty to love the con- 
stancy and "solemnity" or, literally, " accus- 
tomedness," of law, seeking first what are the 
solemn, appointed, inviolable customs and gen- 
eral orders of nature, and of the Master of na- 
ture, touching the matter in hand; and striving 
to put itself, as habitually and inviolably, in 
compliance with them. Out of which habit, 
once established, arises what is rightly called 
" conscience,'' not " science " merely, but " with- 
science." 



THE CONDITION OF ALL GOOD WORK. 

"You may judge my masterhood of craft," 
Giotto tells us, " by seeing that I can draw a 
circle unerringly." And we may safely believe 
him, understanding him to mean, that — though 
more may be necessary to an artist than such a 
power — at least this power is necessary. The 



84 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

qualities of hand and eye needful to do this are 
the first conditions of artistic craft. 

Try to draw a circle yourself with the " free '' 
hand, and with a single line. You cannot do it 
if your hand trembles, nor if it hesitates, nor if 
it is unmanageable, nor if it is in the common 
sense of the word " free." So far from being 
free, it must be under a control as absolute and 
accurate as if it were fastened to an inflexible 
bar of steel. And yet it must move, under this 
necessary control, with perfect, untormented 
serenity of ease. 

That is the condition of all good work what- 
soever. All freedom is error. Every line you 
lay down is either right or wrong: it may be 
timidly and awkardly wrong, or fearlessly and 
impudently wrong: the aspect of the impudent 
wrongness is pleasurable to vulgar persons; and 
is what they commonly call " free " execution: 
the timid, tottering, hesitating wrongness is 
rarely so attractive; yet sometimes, if accom- 
panied with good qualities, and right aims in 
other directions, it becomes in a manner charm- 
ing, like the inarticulateness of a child: but, 
whatever the charm or manner of the error, 
there is but one question ultimately to be asked 
respecting every line you draw, Is it right or 
wrong ? If right, it most assuredly is not a 
"free" line, but an intensely continent, re- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 85 

strained, and considered line; and the action of 
the hand in laying it is just as decisive and just 
as " free " as the hand of a first-rate surgeon in 
a critical incision. 



THE GAMES OF LIFE. 

Then, next to the gentlemen's game of hunt- 
ing, we must put the ladies' game of dressing. 
It is not the cheapest of games. I saw a brooch 
at a jeweller's in Bond Street, a fortnight ago, 
not an inch wide, and without any singular 
jewel in it, yet worth ^3,000. And I wish I 
could tell you what this " play " costs altogether, 
in England, France, and Russia annually. But 
it is a pretty game, and on 'certain terms, I like 
it; nay, I don't see it played quite as much as I 
would fain have it. You ladies like to lead the 
fashion: — by all means lead it — lead it thor- 
oughly, lead it far enough. Dress yourselves 
nicely, and dress everybody else nicely. Lead 
the fashions for the poor first; make them look 
well, and you yourselves will look, in ways of 
which you have now no conception, all the bet- 
ter. The fashions you have set for some time 
among your peasantry are not pretty ones; their 
doublets are too irregularly slashed, and the 
wind blows too frankly through them. 



86 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

Then there are other games, wild enough, as 
I could show you if I had time. 

There's playing at literature, and playing at 
art — very different, both, from working at liter- 
ature, or working at art, but I've no time to 
speak of these. I pass to the greatest of all — 
the play of plays, the great gentlemen's game, 
which ladies like them best to play at, — the 
game of War. It is entrancingly pleasant to the 
imagination; the fact of it not always so pleas- 
ant. We dress for it, however, more finely than 
for any other sport; and go out to it, not merely 
in scarlet, as to hunt, but in scarlet and gold, 
and all manner of fine colors: of course we 
could fight better in gray, and without feathers; 
but all nations have agreed that it is good to be 
well dressed at this play. 

Yes, gentlemen, and gentlewomen, of Eng- 
land, who think " one moment unamused a mis- 
ery, not made for feeble man," this is what you 
have brought the word " play " to mean, in the 
heart of merry England! You may have your 
fluting and piping; but there are sad children 
sitting in the market-place, who indeed cannot 
say to you, "We have piped unto you, and ye 
have not danced:" but eternally shall say to you, 
" We have mourned unto you, and ye have not 
lamented." 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 87 



WOMAN S INFLUENCE IN THE GAME OF WAR. 

You, tender and delicate women, for whom, 
and by whose command, all true battle has 
been, and must ever be; you would perhaps 
shrink now, though you need not, from the 
thought of sitting as queens above set lists 
where the jousting game might be mortal. How 
much more, then, ought you to shrink from the 
thought of sitting above a theatre pit, in which 
even a few condemned slaves were slaying each 
other only for your delight! And do you not 
shrink from the fact of sitting above a theatre 
pit, where, — not condemned slaves, — but the 
best and bravest of the poor sons of your 
people, slay each other, — not man to man, — as 
the coupled gladiators; but race to race, in duel 
of generations ? You would tell me, perhaps, 
that you do not sit to see this; and it is indeed 
true, that the women of Europe — those who 
have no heart-interest of their own at peril in 
the contest — draw the curtains of their boxes, 
and muffle the openings; so that from the pit of 
the circus of slaughter there may reach them only 
at intervals a half-heard cry and a murmur, as of 
the wind's sighing, when myriads of souls expire. 
They shut out the death-cries; and are happy, 
and talk wittily among themselves. That is the 



88 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

utter literal fact of what our ladies do in their 
pleasant lives. 

And now let me turn for a moment to you, — 
wives and maidens, who are the souls of soldiers; 
to you, — mothers, who have devoted your chil- 
dren to the great hierarchy of war. Let me ask 
you to consider what part you have to take for 
the aid of those who love you; for if you fail in 
your part they cannot fulfil theirs; such absolute 
helpmates you are that no man can stand with- 
out that help, nor labor in his own strength. 

I know your hearts, and that the truth of 
them never fails when an hour of trial comes 
which you recognize for such. But you know 
not when the hour of trial first finds you, nor 
when it verily finds you. You imagine that you 
are only called upon to wait and to suffer; to 
surrender and to mourn. You know that you 
must not weaken the hearts of your husbands 
and lovers, even by the one fear of which those 
hearts are capable, — the fear of parting from you, 
or of causing you grief. Through weary years 
of separation; through fearful expectancies of 
unknown fate; through the tenfold bitterness of 
the sorrow which might so easily have been joy, 
and the tenfold yearning for glorious life struck 
down in its prime — through all these agonies you 
fail not, and never will fail. But your trial is 
not in these. To be heroic in danger is little; — 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 89 

you are Englishwomen. To be heroic in change 
and sway of fortune is little; — for do you not 
love? To be patient through the great chasm 
and pause of loss is little; — for do you not still 
love in heaven ? But to be heroic in happiness; 
to bear yourselves gravely and righteously in the 
dazzling of the sunshine of morning; not to for- 
get the God in whom you trust, when he gives 
you most; not to fail those who trust you, when 
they seem to need you least; this is the difficult 
fortitude. It is not in the pining of absence, not 
in the peril of battle, not in the wasting of sick- 
ness, that your prayer should be most passionate, 
or your guardianship most tender. Pray, mothers 
and maidens, for your young soldiers in the 
bloom of their pride; pray for them, while the 
only dangers round them are in their own way- 
ward wills; watch you, and pray, when they have 
to face, not death, but temptation. But it is 
this fortitude also for which there is the crown- 
ing reward. Believe me, the whole course and 
character of your lovers' lives is in your hands; 
what you would have them be, they shall be, if 
you not only desire to have them so, but deserve 
to have them so; for they are but mirrors in 
which you will see yourselves imaged. If you 
are frivolous, they will be so also; if you have no 
understanding of the scope of their duty, they 
also will forget it; they will listen, — they can 



90 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

listen, — to no other interpretation of it than that 
uttered from your lips. Bid them be brave — 
they will be brave for you; bid them be cowards 
— and how noble soever they be, they will quail 
for you. Bid them be wise, and they will be wise 
for you; mock at their counsel, they will be 
fools for you: such and so absolute is your rule 
over them. You fancy, perhaps, as you have 
been told so often, that a wife's rule should only 
be over her husband's house, not over his mind. 
Ah, no ! the true rule is just the reverse of that; 
a true wife, in her husband's house, is his servant; 
it is in his heart that she is queen. Whatever 
of the best he can conceive, it is her part to be; 
whatever of highest he can hope, it is hers to 
promise; all that is dark in him she must purge 
into purity; all that is failing in him she must 
strengthen into truth: from her, through all the 
world's clamor, he must win his praise; in her, 
through all the world's warfare, he must find his 
peace. 

Yet, truly, if it might be, I, for one, would fain 
join in the cadence of hammer- strokes that 
should beat swords into ploughshares; and that 
this cannot be, is not the fault of us men. It is 
your fault. Wholly yours. Only by your com- 
mand, or by your permission, can any contest 
take place among us. And the real, final reason 
for all the poverty, misery, and rage of battle, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 91 

throughout Europe, is simply that you women, 
however good, however religious, however self- 
sacrificing for those whom you love, are too sel- 
fish and too thoughtless to take pains for any 
creature out of your own immediate circles. 
You fancy that you are sorry for the pain of 
others. Now I just tell you this, that if the 
usual course of war, instead of unroofing peasants' 
houses, and ravaging peasants' fields, merely 
broke the china upon your own drawing-room 
tables, no war in civilized countries would last a 
week. I tell you more, that at whatever moment 
you chose to put a period to war, you could do 
it with less trouble than you take any day to go 
out to dinner. You know, or at least you might 
know if you would think, that every battle you 
hear of has made many widows and orphans. 
We have, none of us, heart enough truly to 
mourn with these. But at least we might put 
on the outer symbols of mourning with them. 
Let but every Christian lady who has conscience 
toward God, vow that she will mourn, at least 
outwardly, for His killed creatures. Your pray- 
ing is useless, and your church-going mere mock- 
ery of God, if you have not plain obedience in 
you enough for this. Let every lady in the up- 
per classes of civilized Europe simply vow that, 
while any cruel war proceeds, she will wear black; 
— a mute's black, — with no jewel, no ornament, 



Q2 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

no excuse for, or evasion into, prettiness, — I tell 
you again, no war would last a week. 



COURAGE, GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 

Courage is a mere matter of course among 
any ordinary well-born youths; but neither 
truth nor gentleness is matter of course. They 
must bind them like shields about their neck; 
they must write them on the tables of their 
hearts. Though it be not exacted of them, yet 
let them exact it of themselves, this vow of stain- 
less truth. Their hearts are, if they leave them 
unstirred, as tombs in which a god lies buried. 
Let them vow themselves crusaders to redeem 
that sacred sepulchre. And remember, before 
all things — for no other memory will be so pro- 
tective of them — that the highest law of this 
knightly truth is that under which it is vowed to 
women. Whomsoever else they deceive, whom- 
soever they injure, whomsoever they leave un- 
aided, they must not deceive, nor injure, nor 
leave unaided, according to their power, any 
woman of whatever rank. Believe me, every 
virtue of the higher phases of manly character 
begins in this; — in truth and modesty before the 
face of all maidens; in truth and pity, or truth 
and reverence, to all womanhood. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 93 

OBEDIENCE TO THE BIBLE THE BEST ANSWER 
TO ATTACKS UPON IT. 

You women of England are all now shrieking 
with one voice, — you and your clergymen to- 
gether, — because you hear of your Bibles being 
attacked. If you choose to obey your Bibles, 
you will never care who attacks them. It is 
just because you never fulfil a single downright 
precept of the Book, that you are so careful for 
its credit; and just because you don't care to 
obey its whole words, that you are so particular 
about the letters of them. The Bible tells you 
to dress plainly, — and you are mad for finery; 
the Bible tells you to have pity on the poor, — 
and you crush them under your carriage-wheels; 
the Bible tells you to do judgment and justice, — 
and you do not know, nor care to know, so muck 
as what the Bible word "justice" means. Do 
but learn so much of God's truth as that comes 
to; know what he means when he tells you to 
be just; and teach your sons, that their bravery 
is but a fool's boast, and their deeds but a fire- 
brand's tossing, unless they are indeed just men, 
and perfect in the fear of God; — and you will 
soon have no more war, unless it be indeed such 
as is willed by Him, of whom, though Prince of 
Peace, it is also written, " In Righteousness he 
doth judge, and make war." 



94 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 



THY KINGDOM COME. 

Everybody has been taught to pray daily, 
""Thy kingdom come." Now, if we hear a man 
swear in the streets, we think it very wrong, and 
say he " takes God's name in vain." But there's 
a twenty times worse way of taking his name in 
vain, than that. It is to ask God for what we 
don't want. He does not like that sort of prayer. 
If you don't want a thing, do not ask for it: 
such asking is the worst mockery of your King 
you can mock him with; the soldiers strik- 
ing him on the head with the reed was nothing 
to that. If you do not wish for his kingdom, 
don't pray for it. But if you do, you must do 
more than pray for it; you must work for it. 
And, to work for it, you must know what it is: 
we have all prayed for it many a day without 
thinking. Observe, it is a kingdom that is to 
come to us; we are not to go to it. Also, it is not 
to be a kingdom of the dead, but of the living. 
Also, it is not to come all at once, but quietly; 
nobody knows how. " The kingdom of God 
cometh not with observation." Also, it is not to 
come outside of us, but in the hearts of us: 
"the kingdom of God is within you." And, be- 
ing within us, it is not a thing to be seen, but to 
be felt; and though it brings all substance of 
good with it, it does not consist in that: "the 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. J$ 

kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but 
righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost:" 
joy, that is to say, in the holy, healthful, and 
helpful Spirit. Now, if we want to work for 
this kingdom, and to bring it, and enter into it> 
there's just one condition to be first accepted. 
You must enter it as children, or not at all; 
" Whosoever will not receive it as a little child 
shall not enter therein." And again, " Suffer 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 



IMPORTANCE OF ACCURATE INSTRUCTION IK 
DRAWING AND PAINTING. 

In general, youths and girls who do not wish 
to draw should not be compelled to draw; but 
when natural disposition exists, strong enough to- 
render wholesome discipline endurable with 
patience, every well-trained youth and girl ought 
to be taught the elements of drawing, as of music,, 
early, and accurately. 

To teach them inaccurately is indeed, strictly 
speaking, not to teach them at all; or worse 
than that, to prevent the possibility of their 
ever being taught. The ordinary methods of 
water-color sketching, chalk drawing, and the 
like, now so widely taught by second-rate mas- 



g6 PEA XLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

ters, simply prevent the pupil from ever under- 
standing the qualities of great art, through the 
whole of his after-life. 

Given the materials, the limits of time, and 
the conditions of place, there is only one proper 
method of painting. And since, if painting is 
to be entirely good, the materials of it must be 
the best possible, and the conditions of time and 
place entirely favorable, there is only one man- 
ner of entirely good painting. The so-called 
*' styles " of artists are either adaptations to im- 
perfections of material, or indications of imper- 
fection in their own power or the knowledge of 
their day. The great painters are like each 
other in their strength, and diverse only in weak- 
ness. 

In order to produce a completely representa- 
tive picture of any object on a flat surface, we 
must outline it, color it, and shade it. Accord- 
ingly, in order to become a complete artist, you 
must learn these three following modes of skill 
completely. First, how to outline spaces with 
accurate and delicate lines. Secondly, how to 
iill the outlined spaces with accurate, and deli- 
cately laid, color. Thirdly, how to gradate the 
colored spaces, so as to express, accurately and 
delicately, relations of light and shade. 

By the word " accurate " in these sentences, I 
mean nearly the same thing as if I had written 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 9/ 

" true;" but yet I mean a little more than verbal 
truth: for in many cases, it is possible to give 
the strictest truth in words without any painful 
care; but it is not possible to be true in lines,, 
without constant care or accuracy. 



HEALTHY ART THE EXPRESSION OF TRUE DE- 
LIGHT. 

Fix, then, this in your mind as the guiding 
principle of all right practical labor, and source 
of all healthful life energy, — that your art is to 
be the praise of something that you love. It 
may be only the praise of a shell or a stone; it 
may be the praise of a hero; it may be the praise 
of God; your rank as a living creature is deter- 
mined by the height and breadth of your love; 
but, be you small or great, what healthy art is 
possible to you must be the expression of your 
true delight in a real thing, better than the art. 

This is the main lesson I have been teaching, 
so far as I have been able, through my whole 
life. Only that picture is noble, which is painted 
in love of the reality. It is a law which em- 
braces the highest scope of art; it is one also- 
which guides in security the first steps of it. If 
you desire to draw, that you may represent 
something that you care for, you will advance 



98 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

swiftly and safely. If you desire to draw, that 
you may make a beautiful drawing, you will never 
make one. 

And this simplicity of purpose is further use- 
ful in closing all discussions of the respective 
grace or admirableness of method. The best 
painting is that which most completely repre- 
sents what it undertakes to represent, as the 
best language is that which most clearly says 
what it undertakes to say. 



THE MOMENT OF CHOICE. 

No point of duty has been more miserably 
warped and perverted than this duty of the 
young to choose whom they will serve. But the 
duty itself does not the less exist; and if there 
be any truth in Christianity at all, there will 
come, for all true disciples, a time when they 
have to take that saying to heart, " He that 
loveth father or mother more than me, is not 
worthy of me." 

" Loveth " — observe. There is no talk of dis- 
obeying fathers or mothers whom you do not 
love, or of running away from a home where you 
would rather not stay. But to leave the home 
which is your peace, — this, if there be meaning 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 99 

in Christ's words, one day or other will be de- 
manded of his true followers. 

And there is meaning in Christ's words. 
Whatever misuse may have been made of them, 
— whatever false prophets — and Heaven knows 
there have been many — have called the young 
children to them, not to bless, but to curse, the 
assured fact remains, that if you will obey 
God, there will come a moment when the voice 
of man will be raised, with all its holiest natural 
authority, against you. The friend and the wise 
adviser — the brother and the sister — the father 
and the master — the entire voice of your pru- 
dent and keen-sighted acquaintance — the entire 
weight of the scornful stupidity of the vulgar 
world — for once, they will be against you, all at 
one. You have to obey God rather than man. 
The human race, with all its wisdom and love, 
all its indignation and folly, on one side, — God 
alone on the other. You have to choose. 

That is the meaning of St. Francis's renounc- 
ing his inheritance; and it is the beginning of 
Giotto's Gospel of Works. Unless this hardest 
of deeds be done first, — this inheritance of mam- 
mon and the world cast away, — all other deeds 
are useless. You cannot serve, cannot obey, 
God and mammon. No charities, no obediences, 
no self-denials, are of any use, while you are 
still at heart in conformity with the world. You 



100 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

go to church, because the world goes. You 
keep Sunday, because your neighbors keep it. 
But you dress ridiculously, because your neigh- 
bors ask it; and you dare not do a rough piece 
of work because your neighbors despise it. 

You must begin your education with the dis- 
tinct resolution to know what is true, and choice 
of the strait and rough road to such knowl- 
edge. This choice is offered to every youth and 
maid at some moment of their life; — choice be- 
tween the easy downward road, so broad that 
we can dance down it in companies, and the 
steep narrow way, which we must enter alone. 
Then, and for many a day afterward, they need 
that form of persistent Option, and Will: but 
day by day, the " Sense" of the Tightness of 
what they have done, deepens on them, not in 
consequence of the effort, but by gift granted in 
reward of it. And the sense of difference be- 
tween right and wrong, and between beautiful 
and unbeautiful things, is confirmed in the heroic,, 
and fulfilled in the industrious, soul. 

That is the process of education in the earthly 
sciences, and the morality connected with them. 
Reward given to faithful Volition. 

Next, when Moral and Physical senses are 
perfect, comes the desire for education in the 
higher world, where the senses are no more our 
Teachers; but the Maker of the senses. And 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 101 

that teaching, we cannot get by labor, but only 
by petition. 



GRAMMAR. 

The Art of faithfully reading what has been 
written for our learning; and of clearly writing 
what we would make immortal of our thoughts. 
Power which consists first in recognizing letters; 
secondly, in forming them; thirdly, in the un- 
derstanding and choice of words which, error- 
less, shall express our thought. Severe exer- 
cises all, reaching — very few living persons 
know, how far: beginning properly in childhood, 
then only to be truly acquired. It is wholly im- 
possible — this I say from too sorrowful experi- 
ence — to conquer by any effort of time, habits 
of the hand (much more of head and soul) with 
which the vase of flesh has been formed and 
filled in youth, — the law of God being that par- 
ents shall compel the child in the day of its 
obedience into habits of hand, and eye, and 
soul, which, when it is old, shall not, by any 
strength, or any weakness, be departed from. 



RHETORIC. 

Next to learning how to read and write, you 
are to learn to speak; and, young ladies and 



102 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

gentlemen, observe, — to speak as little as possi- 
ble, it is further implied, till you have learned. 

In the streets of Florence at this day you 
may hear much of what some people call " rhet- 
oric" — very passionate speaking indeed, and 
quite " from the heart" — such hearts as the peo- 
ple have got. That is to say, you never hear a 
word uttered but in a rage, either just ready to 
burst, or for the most part, explosive instantly: 
everybody — man, woman, or child — roaring out 
their incontinent, foolish, infinitely contempti- 
ble opinions and wills, on every smallest occa- 
sion, with flashing eyes, hoarsely shrieking and 
wasted voices, — insane hope to drag by vocifer- 
ation whatever they would have, out of man 
and God. 

Again, look at the talkers in the streets of 
Florence, and see how, being essentially unable 
to talk, they try to make lips of their fingers! 
How they poke, wave, and flourish, point, jerk, 
shake finger and fist at their antagonists — dumb 
essentially, all the while, if they knew it; unper- 
suasive and ineffectual, as the shaking of tree 
branches in the wind. 

You think the function of words is to excite? 
Why, a red rag will do that, or a blast through a 
brass pipe. But to give calm and gentle heat; 
to be as the south wind, and the iridescent rain, 
to all bitterness of frost; and bring at once 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 103 

strength, and healing. This is the work of hu- 
man lips, taught of God. 



LOGIC. 



The science of reasoning, or more accurately 
Reason herself, or pure intelligence. 

Science to be gained after that of expression; 
so, young people, it appears, that though you 
must not speak before you have been taught 
how to speak, you may yet properly speak before 
you have been taught how to think. 

For, indeed, it is only by frank speaking that 
you can learn how to think. And it is no mat- 
ter how wrong the first thoughts you have may 
be, provided you express them clearly; — and are 
willing to have them put right. 



MUSIC. 



After you have learned to reason, young peo- 
ple, of course you will be very grave, if not dull, 
you think. By no means anything of the kind. 
After learning to reason, you will learn to sing; 
for you will want to. There is so much reason 
for singing in the sweet world, when one thinks 
rightly of it. None for grumbling, provided al- 



104 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

ways you have entered in at the strait gate. 
You will sing all along the road then, in a little 
while, in a manner pleasant for other people to 
hear. 



ASTRONOMY. 

The knowledge of so much of the stars as we 
can know wisely; not the attempt to define their 
laws for them. Not that it is unbecoming of us 
to find out, if we can, that they move in ellipses,, 
and so on; but it is no business of ours. What 
effects their rising and setting have on man, and 
beast, and leaf; what their times and changes 
are, seen and felt in this world, it is our business 
to know, passing our nights, if wakefully, by that 
divine candlelight, and no other. 



GEOMETRY. 



You have now learned, young ladies, to read, 
to speak, to think, to sing, and to see. You are 
getting old, and will have soon to think of being 
married; you must learn to build your house, 
therefore. Here is your carpenter's square for 
you, and you may safely and wisely contemplate 
the ground a little, and the measures and laws 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. IOJ 

relating to that, seeing you have got to abide 
upon it; — and that you have properly looked at 
the stars; not before then, lest, had you studied 
the ground first, you might perchance never have 
raised your heads from it. 

This is properly the science of all laws of 
practical labor, issuing in beauty. 



ARITHMETIC. 

Having built your house, young people, and 
understanding the light of heaven, and the meas- 
ures of earth, you may marry — and can't do bet- 
ter. And here is now your conclusive science, 
which you will have to apply all your days, to all 
your affairs. 

To give a minor, but characteristic instance. 
I have always felt that, with my intense love 
of the Alps, I ought to have been able to make 
a drawing of Chamouni, or the vale of Cluse, 
which should give people more pleasure than a 
photograph; but I always wanted to do it as I 
saw it, and engrave pine for pine, and crag for 
crag, like Albert Durer. I broke my strength 
down for many a year, always tiring of my work, 
or finding the leaves drop off, or the snow come 
on, before I had well begun what I meant to do. 
If I had only counted my pines first, and calcu- 
lated the number of hours necessary to do them 



106 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

in the manner of Durer, I should have saved the 
available drawing time of some five years, spent 
in vain effort. 

So in all the affairs of life, the arithmetical 
part of the business is the dominant one. How 
many and how much have we? How many 
and how much do we want? How constant- 
ly does noble Arithmetic of the finite lose itself 
in base Avarice of the Infinite, and in blind 
imagination of it! In counting of minutes, is 
our arithmetic ever solicitous enough ? In count- 
ing our days, is she ever severe enough ? How 
we shrink from putting in their decades, the di- 
minished store of them! And if we ever pray 
the solemn prayer that we may be taught to 
number them, do we even try to do it after pray- 
ing? 

Here then we have the sum of sciences, — 
seven, according to the Florentine mind — neces- 
sary to the secular education of man and woman. 
Of these, the modern average respectable Eng- 
lish gentleman and gentlewoman know usually 
only a little of the last, and entirely hate the 
prudent applications of that: being unacquainted, 
except as they chance here and there to pick up 
a broken piece of information, with either gram- 
mar, rhetoric, music,* astronomy, or geometry; 

* Being able to play the piano and admire Mendelssohn 
is not knowing music. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. \0J 

and are not only unacquainted with logic, or the 
use of reason themselves, but instinctively an- 
tagonistic to its use by anybody else. 



CIVIL LAW. 



Civil, or "of citizens/' not only as distin- 
guished from Ecclesiastical, but from Local law. 
She is the universal Justice of the peaceful rela- 
tions of men throughout the world. 

To know anything whatever about God, you 
must begin by being Just. 



CHRISTIAN LAW. 

After the justice which rules men, comes that 
which rules the Church of Christ. The distinc- 
tion is not between secular law and ecclesiastical 
authority, but between the equity of humanity, 
and the law of Christian discipline. 



PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. 



The beginning of the knowledge of God being 
Human Justice, and its elements defined by 
Christian Law, the application of the law so de- 



108 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

fined follows, first with respect to man, then with 
respect to God. 

" Render unto Caesar the things that are Cae- 
sar's — and to God the things that are God's." 

We have therefore now two sciences, one of 
our duty to men, the other to their Maker. 

I have called this science, Practical Theology: 
— the instructive knowledge, that is to say, of 
what God would have us do, personally, in any 
given human relation: and the speaking his Gos- 
pel therefore by act. " Let your light so shine 
before men." 



DEVOTIONAL THEOLOGY. 

Giving glory to God, or, more accurately, what- 
ever feelings he desires us to have toward him, 
whether of affection or awe. 

This is the science or method of devotion for 
Christians universally, just as the Practical The- 
ology is their science or method of action. 



DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. 

After action and worship, thought becoming 
too wide and difficult, the need of dogma be- 
comes felt; the assertion, that is, within limited 
range, of the things that are to be believed. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. IO9 

Since whatever pride and folly pollute Chris- 
tian scholarship naturally delight in dogma, the 
science itself cannot but be in a kind of disgrace 
among sensible men: nevertheless it would be 
difficult to overvalue the peace and security 
which have been given to humble persons by 
forms of creed; and it is evident that either 
there is no such thing as theology, or some of its 
knowledge must be thus, if not expressible, at 
least reducible within certain limits of expres- 
sion, so as to be protected from misinterpretation. 

The assertion of truth is to be always gentle; 
the chastisement of wilful falsehood may be — 
very much the contrary indeed. Christ's sermon 
on the Mount is full of polemic theology, yet 
perfectly gentle : — "Ye have heard thtithath 
been said — but / say unto you"; — "And if ye 
salute your brethren only, what do ye more than 
others ?" and the like. But His " Ye fools and 
blind, for whether is greater," is not merely the 
exposure of error, but rebuke of the avarice 
which made that error possible. 



REVERENCE AND COMPASSION TO BE TAUGHT. 

The two great mental graces should be taught, 
Reverence and Compassion; not that these are 
in a literal sense to be "taught," for they are in- 



HO PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

nate in every well-born human creature, but 
they have to be developed, exactly as the 
strength of the body must be, by deliberate and 
constant exercise. I never understood why 
Goethe (in the plan of education in Wilhelm 
Meister) says that reverence is not innate, but 
must be taught from without; it seems to me so 
fixedly a function of the human spirit, that if 
men can get nothing else to reverence they will 
worship a fool, or a stone, or a vegetable. To 
teach reverence rightly is to attach it to the right 
persons and things; first, by setting over your 
youth masters whom they cannot but love and 
respect; next, by gathering for them, out of past 
history, whatever has been most worthy, in hu- 
man deeds and human passions; and leading 
them continually to dwell upon such instances, 
making this the principal element of emotional 
excitement to them; and lastly, by letting them 
justly feel, as far as may be, the smallness of 
their own powers and knowledge, as compared 
with the attainments of others. 



MUSIC AND DANCING A NATURAL EXPRESSION 
OF JOY. 

The going forth of the women of Israel after 
Miriam, with timbrels and with dances, was, as 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. Ill 

you doubtless remember, their expression of pas- 
sionate triumph and thankfulness, after the full 
accomplishment of their deliverance from the 
Egyptians. That deliverance had been by the 
utter death of their enemies, and accompanied 
by stupendous miracle; no human creatures 
could in an hour of triumph be surrounded by 
circumstances more solemn. I am not going to 
try to excite your feelings about them. Consider 
only for yourself what that seeing of the Egyp- 
tians " dead upon the sea-shore" meant to every 
soul that saw it. And then reflect that these in- 
tense emotions of mingled horror, triumph, and 
gratitude were expressed, in the visible presence 
of the Deity, by music and dancing. If you 
answer that you do not believe the Egyptians so 
perished, or that God ever appeared in a pillar 
of cloud, I reply, " Be it so — believe or disbe- 
lieve, as you choose: — This is yet assuredly the 
fact, that the author of the poem of the Exodus 
supposed that under such circumstances of Di- 
vine interposition as he had invented, the tri- 
umph of the Israelitish women would have been, 
and ought to have been, under the direction of a 
prophetess, expressed by music and dancing." 

Returning to the Jewish history, you find soon 
afterward this enthusiastic religious dance and 
song employed beautifully again and tenderly, 
after the triumph of Jephthah, " And behold his 



112 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

daughter came out to meet him with timbrels 
and with dances." Again still more notably at 
the triumph of David with Saul, " the women 
came out of all the cities of Israel singing and 
dancing, to meet King Saul with tabrets, with 
joy, and with instruments of music." And you 
have this joyful song and dance of the virgins of 
Israel not only incidentally alluded to in the 
most solemn passages of Hebrew religious poetry 
(as in Psalm lxviii. 24, 25, and Psalm cxlix. 2, 3), 
but approved, and the restoration of it promised 
as a sign of God's perfect blessing, most earnest- 
ly by the saddest of the Hebrew prophets, and 
in one of the most beautiful of all his sayings. 

" The Lord hath appeared of old unto me 
saying, ' Yea, I have loved thee with an everlast- 
ing love. Therefore, with loving kindness have 
I drawn thee. I will build thee, and thou shalt 
be built, O Virgin of Israel; thou shalt again be 
adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in 
the dances with them that make merry." 
(Jerem. xxxi. 3, 4; and compare v. 23.) And 
finally, you have in two of quite the most impor- 
tant passages in the whole series of Scripture 
(one in the Old Testament, one in the New) the 
rejoicing in the repentance from, and remission 
of sins, expressed by means of music and danc- 
ing, namely, in the rapturous dancing of David 
before the returning ark; and in the joy of the 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 113 

^Father's household at the repentance of the 
prodigal son. 



PERVERSION OF LAWFUL MEANS OF FESTIVITY. 

I shall take that beautiful parable of the Prod- 
igal Son (which I have already referred to), and 
explain, as far as I know, the significance of it, and 
then I will take the three means of festivity, or 
wholesome human joy, therein stated — fine dress, 
rich food, and music; — (" bring forth the fairest 
robe for him," — " bring forth the fatted calf, and 
kill it;" — " as he drew nigh, he heard music and 
dancing;") and I will show you how all these 
three things, fine dress, rich food, and music, 
(including ultimately all the other arts,) are 
meant to be sources of life, and means of moral 
discipline to all men; and how they have all 
three been made, by the Devil, the means of 
guilt, dissoluteness, and death. 



TRUE HUMILITY. 

I want you to note that when the prodigal 
comes to his senses, he complains of nobody but 
himself, and speaks of no unworthiness but his 
own. He says nothing against any of the women 
who tempted him — nothing against the citizen 



114 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

who left him to feed on husks — nothing of false 
friends of whom "no man gave unto him" — 
above all, nothing of the " corruption of human 
nature," or the corruption of things in general. 
He says that he himself is unworthy, as distin- 
guished from honorable persons, and that he him- 
self has sinned, as distinguished from righteous 
persons. And that is the hard lesson to learn, 
and the beginning of faithful lessons. All right 
and fruitful humility, and purging of heart, and 
seeing of God, is in that. It is easy to call your- 
self the chief of sinners, expecting every sinner 
round you to decline — or return — the compli- 
ment; but learn to measure the real degrees of 
your own relative baseness, and to be ashamed, 
not in heaven's sight, but in man's sight; and 
redemption is indeed begun. Observe the 
phrase, I have sinned " against heaven," against 
the great law of that, and before thee, visibly de- 
graded before my human sire and guide, unwor- 
thy any more of being esteemed of his blood, and 
desirous only of taking the place I deserve 
among his servants. 



THE PERFECTION OF MUSIC AND ITS DEGRADA- 
TION. 

Music is the nearest at hand, the most order- 
ly, the most delicate, and the most perfect, of 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 115 

all bodily pleasures; it is also the only one 
which is equally helpful to all the ages of man — 
helpful from the nurse's song to her infant, to 
the music, unheard of others, which often, if 
not most frequently, haunts the deathbed of 
pure and innocent spirits. And the action of 
the deceiving or devilish power is in nothing 
shown quite so distinctly among us at this day, — 
not even in our commercial dishonesties, nor in 
our social cruelties, — as in its having been able 
to take away music, as an instrument of educa- 
tion, altogether; and to enlist it almost wholly 
in the service of superstition on the one hand, 
and of sensuality on the other. 



THE PUREST FACULTIES OF MAN S SOUL MOST 
LIABLE TO CORRUPTION. 

Every faculty of man's soul, and every in- 
stinct of it by which he is meant to live, is ex- 
posed to its own special form of corruption: 
and whether within man, or in the external 
world, there is a power or condition of tempta- 
tion which is perpetually endeavoring to reduce 
every glory of his soul, and every power of his 
life, to such corruption as is possible to them. 
And the more beautiful they are, the more fear- 



HO PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

ful is the death which is attached as a penalty 
to their degradation. 

Take for instance that which, in its purity, is 
the source of the highest and purest mortal 
happiness — Love. Think of it first as its high- 
est — as it may exist in the disciplined spirit of a 
perfect human creature; as it has so existed 
again and again, and does always, wherever it 
truly exists at all, as the purifying passion of the 
soul. I will not speak of the transcendental 
and imaginative intensity in which it may reign 
in noble hearts, as when it inspired the greatest 
religious poem yet given to men; but take it in 
its true and quiet purity in any simple lover's 
heart — as you have it expressed, for instance, 
thus exquisitely, in the Angel in the House: 

" And there, with many a blissful tear, 

I vowed to love and prayed to wed 

The maiden who had grown so dear; — 

Thanked God, who had set her in my path; 

And promised, as I hoped to win, 

I never would sully my faith 

By the least selfishness or sin; 

Whatever in her sight I'd seem 

I'd really be; I ne'er would blend, 

With my delight in her, a dream 
i 'Twould change her cheek to comprehend; 

And, if she wished it, would prefer 

Another's to my own success; 

And always seek the best for her 

With unofficious tenderness." 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. l\J 
THE ROBIN. 

In none of the old natural-history books can 
I find any account of the robin as a traveller, 
but there is, for once, some sufficient reason for 
their reticence. He has a curious fancy in his 
manner of travelling. Of all birds, you would 
think he was likely to do it in the cheerfulest 
way, and he does it in the saddest. Do you 
chance to have read, in the Life of Charles 
Dickens, how fond he was of taking long walks 
in the night and alone ? The robin, en voyage, 
is the Charles Dickens of birds. He always 
travels in the night, and alone; rest, in the day, 
wherever day chances to find him; sings a little, 
and pretends he hasn't been anywhere. He 
goes as far, in the winter, as the northwest of 
Africa; and in Lombardy, arrives from the 
south early in March; but does not stay long, 
going on into the Alps, where he prefers wooded 
and wild districts. 

The day before yesterday, sleeping at Lich- 
field, and seeing, the first thing when I woke in 
the morning (for I never put down the blinds 
of my bedroom windows), the not uncommon 
sight in an English country town, of an entire 
house-front of very neat, and very flat, and very 
red bricks, with very exactly squared square 
windows in it; and not feeling myself in any- 



Il8 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

wise gratified or improved by the spectacle, I 
was thinking how in this, as in all other good, 
the too much destroyed all. The breadth of a 
robin's breast in brick-red is delicious, but a 
whole house-front of brick-red as vivid, is 
alarming. And yet one cannot generalize even 
that trite moral with any safety — for infinite 
breadth of green is delightful, however green; 
and of sea or sky, however blue. 

You must note, however, that the robin's 
charm is greatly helped by the pretty space of 
gray plumage which separates the red from the 
brown back, and sets it off to its best advan- 
tage. There is no great brilliancy in it, even 
so relieved; only the finish of it is exquisite. 

If you separate a single feather, you will find 
it more like a transparent hollow shell than a 
feather (so delicately rounded the surface of it), 
— gray at the root, where the down is, — tinged, 
and only tinged, with red at the part that over- 
laps and is visible; so that, when three or four 
more feathers have overlapped it again, all to- 
gether, with their joined red, are just enough to 
give the color determined upon, each of them 
contributing a tinge. 

I have been able to put before you some 
means of guidance to understand the beauty of 
the bird which lives with you in your own 
houses, and which purifies for you, from its in- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. II9 

sect pestilence, the air that you breathe. This 
the sweet domestic thing has done, for men, at 
least these four thousand years. She has been 
their companion, not of the home merely, but 
of the hearth, and the threshold; companion 
only endeared by departure, and showing better 
her loving-kindness by her faithful return. 
Type sometimes of the stranger, she has soft- 
ened us to hospitality; type always of the sup- 
pliant, she has enchanted us to mercy; and in 
her feeble presence, the cowardice, or the 
wrath, of sacrilege has changed into the fideli- 
ties of sanctuary. Herald of our summer, she 
glances through our days of gladness; numberer 
of our years, she would teach us to apply our 
hearts to wisdom; — and yet, so little have we re- 
garded her, that this very day, scarcely able to 
gather from all I can find told of her enough to 
explain so much as the unfolding of her wings, 
I can tell you nothing of her life — nothing of her 
journeying; I cannot learn how she builds, nor 
how she chooses the place of her wandering, 
nor how she traces the path of her return. Re- 
maining thus blind and careless to the true min- 
istries of the humble creature whom God has 
really sent to serve us, we in our pride, thinking 
ourselves surrounded by the pursuivants of the 
sky, can yet only invest them with majesty by 
giving them the calm of the bird's motion, and 



120 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

shade of the bird's plume; — and after all, it is 
well for us, if, when even for God's best mer- 
cies, and in his temples marble-built, we think 
that, " with angels and archangels, and all the 
company of heaven, we laud and magnify his 
glorious name " — well for us, if our attempt be 
not only an insult, and his ears open rather to the 
inarticulate and unintended praise of " the 
swallow, twittering from her straw-built shed." 



SIGNS OF DEGENERACY. 

Deeply and fearfully impressed by what my 
own country has incurred and is suffering, I can- 
not help feeling sorrowful when I see in England 
signs of our besetting sins appearing also. Paint 
and chignons, slang and vaudevilles, knowing 
" Anonymas" by name, and reading doubtfully 
moral novels, are in themselves small offences, 
although not many years ago they would have 
appeared very heinous ones, yet they are quick 
and tempting conveyances on a very dangerous 
high-road. 



DUTIES OF THE HIGHER CLASSES. 

The office of the upper classes, then, as a 
body, is to keep order among their inferiors, and 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 121 

raise them always to the nearest level with them- 
selves of which those inferiors are capable. So 
far as they are thus occupied, they are invariably 
loved and reverenced intensely by all beneath 
them, and reach, themselves, the highest types 
of human power and beauty. 

This, then, being the natural ordinance and 
function of aristocracy, its corruption, like that 
of all other beautiful things under the Devil's 
touch, is a very fearful one. Its corruption is, 
that those who ought to be the rulers and guides 
of the people, forsake their task of painful hon- 
orableness; seek their own pleasure and pre- 
eminence only; and use their power, subtlety, 
conceded influence, prestige of ancestry, and 
mechanical instrumentality of martial power, to 
make the lower orders toil for them, and feed 
and clothe them for nothing, and become in va- 
rious ways their living property, goods, and chat- 
tels, even to the point of utter regardlessness of 
whatever misery these serfs may suffer through 
such insolent domination, or they themselves, 
their masters, commit of crime to enforce it. 

And this is especially likely to be the case 
when means of various and tempting pleasure 
are put within the reach of the upper classes by 
advanced conditions of national commerce and 
knowledge; and it is certain to be the case as 
soon as position among those upper classes be 



122 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

comes any way purchasable with money, instead 
of being the assured measure of some kind of 
worth (either strength of hand, or true wisdom 
of conduct, or imaginative gift). 

And now — but one word more — for any read- 
ers who may be startled at what I have been 
saying as to the peculiar stress laid by the 
Founder of our religion on right dealing with 
wealth. Let them be assured that it is with no 
fortuitous choice among the attributes or powers 
of evil, that " Mammon" is assigned for the di- 
rect adversary of the Master whom they are 
bound to serve. You cannot, by any artifice of 
reconciliation, be God's soldier, and his. Nor 
while the desire of gain is within your heart, can 
any true knowledge of the Kingdom of God 
come there. No one shall enter its stronghold, 
— no one receive its blessing, except " he that 
hath clean hands and a pure heart;" clean hands 
that have done no cruel deed; — pure heart, that 
knows no base desire. And, therefore, in the 
highest spiritual sense that can be given to words, 
be assured, not respecting the literal temple of 
stone and gold, but of the living temple of your 
body and soul, that no redemption, nor teaching, 
nor hallowing, will be anywise possible for it, 
until these two verses have been, for it also, ful- 
filled : 

" And He went into the temple, and began to 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 23 

cast out them that sold therein, and them that 
bought. And He taught daily in the temple." 



MARRIAGE IN AN IDEAL KINGDOM. 

These following are laws such as a prudent 
nation would institute respecting its marriages. 
Permission to marry should be the reward held 
in sight of its youth during the entire latter part 
of the course of their education; and it should 
be granted as the national attestation that the 
first portion of their lives had been rightfully 
fulfilled. It should not be attainable without 
earnest and consistent effort, though put within 
the reach of all who were willing to make such 
effort; and the granting of it should be a pub- 
lic testimony to the fact, that the youth or maid to 
whom it was given had lived, within their proper 
sphere, a modest and virtuous life, and had at- 
tained such skill in their proper handicraft, and 
in arts of household economy, as might give well- 
founded expectations of their being able honor- 
ably to maintain and teach their children. 

No girl should receive her permission to mar- 
ry before her 17th birthday, nor any youth before 
his 21st; and it should be a point of somewhat 
distinguished honor with both sexes to gain their 
permission of marriage in the 18th and 22d year; 



124 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

and a recognized disgrace not to have gained 
it at least before the close of their 21st and 24th. 
I do not mean that they should in anywise 
hasten actual marriage; but only that they should 
hold it a point of honor to have the right to 
marry. In every year there should be two fes- 
tivals, one on the first of May, and one at the 
feast of harvest home in each district, at which 
festivals their permissions to marry should be 
given publicly to the maidens and youths who 
had won them in that half-year; and they 
should be crowned, the maids by the old French 
title of Rosieres, and the youths, perhaps by 
some name rightfully derived from one supposed 
signification of the word " bachelor/' " laurel 
fruit;" and so led in joyful procession, with 
music and singing, through the city street or vil- 
lage lane, and the day ended with feasting of the 
poor; but not with feasting theirs, except quiet- 
ly, at their homes. 



FAITHFUL LOVE. 

I am acquainted with a noble girl, who, en- 
gaged at sixteen, and having received several ad- 
vantageous offers since, has remained for ten 
years faithful to her equally faithful lover; while, 
their circumstances rendering it, as they rightly 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 25 

considered, unjustifiable in them to think of 
marriage, each of them simply and happily, aided 
and cheered by the others love, discharged the 
duties of their own separate positions in life. 



THE PRECIOUS STONES AND SKINS OF THE TAB- 
ERNACLE. 

The sacred hue of human flesh — Carnation; 
/^carnation: the color of the body of a man in 
its beauty; of the maid's scarlet blush in noble 
love; of the youth's scarlet glow in noble war; 
the dye of the earth into which heaven has 
breathed its spirit; incarnate strength — incarnate 
modesty. 

The stone of it is the Jasper, which, as we 
shall see, is colored with the same iron that 
colors the human blood; and thus you can un- 
derstand why on the throne, in the vision of the 
returning Christ, " He that sat was to look upon 
like a jasper and a sardine stone." 

I do not know if, in reading the account of 
the pitching of the standards of the princes of 
Israel round the Tabernacle, you have ever been 
brought to pause by the singular covering given 
to the Tabernacle itself, — rams' skins dyed red, 
and badgers' skins. Of rams' skins, of course, 
any quantity could be had from the flocks, but 



126 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

of badgers', the supply must have been difficult. 

And you will find, on looking into the matter, 
that the so-called badgers' skins were indeed 
those which young ladies are very glad to dress 
in at the present day, — seal-skins; and that the 
meaning of their use in the Tabernacle was, that 
it might be adorned with the useful service of 
the flock of the earth and sea; the multitude of 
the seals then in the Mediterranean being indi- 
cated to you both by the name and coinage of 
the city Phocaea; and by the attribution of 
them, to the God Proteus, in the first book of the 
Odyssey, under the precise term of flocks, to be 
counted by him as their shepherd. 

From the days of Moses and of Homer to our 
own, the traffic in these precious wools and furs, 
in the cashmere wool, and the fur, after the seal 
disappeared, of the gray ermine (becoming white 
in the Siberian winter), has continued; and in 
the days of chivalry became of immense impor- 
tance; because the mantle, and the collar fasten- 
ing close about the neck, were at once the most 
useful and the most splendid piece of dress of 
the warrior nations, who rode and slept in rough- 
est weather, and in open field. 

It is no true folly to think that stones live, 
but it is, to think that souls die; it is no true 
folly to believe that, in the day of the making 
up of jewels, the palace walls shall be compact 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 27 

of life above their corner-stone, — but it is, to 
believe that in the day of dissolution the souls 
of the globe shall be shattered with its emerald; 
and no spirit survive, unterrified, above the ruin. 

Yes, pretty ladies ! love the stones, and take 
care of them; but love your own souls better, 
and take care of them, for the day when the 
Master shall make up his jewels. See that it be 
first the precious stones of the breast-plate of 
justice you delight in, and are brave in; not 
first the stones of your own diamond necklaces 
you delight in, and are fearful for, lest perchance 
the lady's maid miss that box at the station. 
Get your breast-plate of truth first, and every 
earthly stone will shine in it. 

As you are true in the choosing, be just in the 
sharing, of your jewels. They are but dross and 
dust, after all; and you, my sweet religious 
friends, who are so anxious to impart to the 
poor your pearls of great price, may surely also 
share with them your pearls of little price. 
Strangely (to my own mind at least), you are 
not so zealous in distributing your estimable 
rubies, as you are in communicating your //^esti- 
mable wisdom. Of the grace of God, which 
you can give away in the quantity you think 
others are in need of, without losing any your- 
selves, I observe you to be affectionately lavish; 
but of the jewels of God, if any suggestions be 



128 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

macie by charity touching the distribution of 
them, you are apt, in your wisdom, to make an- 
swer like the wise virgins, " Not so, lest there be 
not enough for us and you." 

Now, my fair friends, doubtless, if the Taber- 
nacle were to be erected again, in the middle of 
the park, you would all be eager to stitch camels* 
hair for it; — some to make presents of sealskins 
to it; and, perhaps, not a few fetch your jewel- 
cases, offering their contents to the selection of 
Bezaleel and Aholiab. 

But that cannot be, now, with so Crystal- 
Palace-like entertainment to you. The taber- 
nacle of God is now with men; — in men, and 
women, the sucklings also; which temple ye are, 
ye and your Christian sisters; of whom the poor- 
est, here in London, are a very undecorated 
shrine indeed. They are the Tabernacle, fair 
friends, which you have got leave, and charge, 
to adorn. Young ladies, you are yourselves 
the church, dears; and see that you be finally 
adorned, as women professing godliness, with 
the precious stones of good works. So shall 
your days be long in the sweet and sacred land 
which the Lord your God has given you; so, 
truly, shall the gold of that land be good, 

AND THERE, ALSO, THE CRYSTAL, AND THE ONYX 
STONE. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 29 
PLANTS AND THEIR TEACHINGS. 

" Grant but as many sorts of mind as moss.'* 
Pope could not have known the hundredth part 
of the number of "sorts" of moss there are; 
and I suppose he only chose the word because 
it was a monosyllable beginning with m, and the 
best English general expressisn for despised and 
minute structures of plants. But a fate rules 
the words of wise men, which makes their words, 
truer and worth more, than the men themselves, 
know. No other plants have so endless variety 
on so similar a structure as the mosses; and 
none teach so well the humility of Death. As for 
the death of our bodies, we have learned, wisely 
or unwisely, to look the fact of that in the face. 
But none of us, I think, yet care to look the fact 
of the death of our minds in the face. I do not 
mean death of our souls, but of our mental 
work. So far as it is good art, indeed, and done 
in realistic form, it may perhaps not die; but so 
far as it was only good thought — good, for its 
time, and apparently a great achievement therein 
— that good, useful thought may yet in the fu- 
ture become a foolish thought, and then die 
quite away, — it, and the memory of it, — when 
better thought and knowledge come. But the 
better thought could not have come if the weaker 
thought had not come first, and died in sus- 



130 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

taining the better. If we think honestly, our 
thoughts will not only live usefully, but *ven 
perish usefully — like the moss — and become dark, 
not without due service. But if we think dis- 
honestly, or malignantly, our thoughts will die 
like evil fungi, — dripping corrupt dew. 

Other symbols have been given often to show 
the evanescence and slightness of our lives — the 
foam upon the water, the grass on the housetop, 
the vapor that vanishes away; yet none of these 
are images of true human life. That life, when 
it is real, is not evanescent; is not slight; does 
not vanish away. Every noble life leaves the 
fibre of it interwoven forever in the work of the 
world; by so much, evermore, the strength of 
the human race has gained; more stubborn in 
the root, higher toward heaven in the branch; 
and, "as a teil tree, and as an oak, — whose 
substance is in them when they cast their 
leaves, — so the holy seed is in the midst there- 
of." 

Only remember on what conditions. In the 
great Psalm of life, we are told that everything 
that a man doeth shall prosper, so only that he 
delight in the law of his God, that he hath not 
walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor sat in 
the seat of the scornful. Is it among these 
leaves of the perpetual Spring, — helpful leaves 
for the healing of the nations, — that we mean to 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 131 

have our part and place, or rather among the 
"brown skeletons of leaves that lag, the forest 
brook along "? For other leaves there are, and 
other streams that water them, — not water of 
life, but water of Acheron. Autumnal leaves 
there are that strew the brooks, in Vallombrosa. 
Remember you how the name of the place was 
changed: "Once called ' Sweet Water* (Aqua 
bella), now, the Shadowy Vale." Portion in one 
or other name we must choose, all of us, — with 
the living olive, by the living fountains of waters > 
or with the wild fig trees, whose leafage of 
human soul is strewed along the brooks of death, 
in the eternal Vallombrosa. 

What shall we say of the plants whose entire 
destiny is parasitic — which are not only some- 
times, and ////pertinently, but always, and perti- 
nently, out of place; not only out of the right 
place, but out of any place of their own? When 
is mistletoe, for instance, in the right place > 
young ladies, think you? On an apple tree, or 
on a ceiling? When is ivy in the right place? — 
when wallflower? The ivy has been torn down 
from the towers of Kenilworth; the weeds from 
the arches of the Coliseum, and from the steps 
of the Araceli, irreverently, vilely, and in vain; 
but how are we to separate the creatures whose 
office it is to abate the grief of ruin by their gen- 
tleness, 



132 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

1 ' wafting wallflower scents 
From out the crumbling ruins of fallen pride, 
And chambers of transgression, now forlorn," 

from those which truly resist the toil of men, 
and conspire against their fame; which are cun- 
ning to consume, and prolific to encumber; and 
of whose perverse and unwelcome sowing we 
know, and can say assuredly, " An enemy hath 
done this." 

Will you note also — for this is of extreme in- 
terest — that essential faults are all mean faults; 
— what we may call ground-growing faults; con- 
ditions of semi-education, of hardly-treated 
homelife, or of coarsely-minded and wandering 
prosperity. How literally may we go back from 
the living soul symbolized, to the strangely ac- 
curate earthly symbol, in the prickly weed. 
For if, with its bravery of endurance, and care- 
lessness in choice of home, we find also 
definite faculty and habit of migration, volant 
mechanism for choiceless journey, not divinely 
directed in pilgrimage to known shrines; but 
carried at the wind's will by a Spirit which list- 
•eth not — it will go hard but that the plant shall 
become, if not dreaded, at least despised; and, 
In its wandering and reckless splendor, disgrace 
the garden of the sluggard, and possess the in- 
heritance of the prodigal: until even its own 
nature seems contrary to good, and the invoea- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 133 

tion of the just man be made to it as the execu- 
tor of Judgment, " Let thistles grow instead of 
wheat, and cockle instead of barley." 



THE BLOSSOM OF THE THORN. 

I want, if I can, to find out to-day, 25th May,. 
1875, what it is we like it so much for: holding 
these two branches of it in my hand — one full 
out, the other in youth. This full one is a mere 
mass of symmetrically balanced — snow, one was 
going vaguely to write, in the first impulse. But 
it is nothing of the sort. White, — yes, in a high 
degree; and pure, totally; but not at all dazzling 
in the white, nor pure in an insultingly rivalless 
manner, as snow would be; yet pure somehow,, 
certainly; and white, absolutely, in spite of what 
might be thought failure, — imperfection — nay 
even distress and loss in it. For every little 
rose of it has a green darkness in the centre — 
not even a pretty green, but a faded, yellowish, 
glutinous, unaccomplished green; and round 
that, all over the surface of the blossom, whose 
shell-like petals are themselves deep sunk, with 
gray shadows in the hollows of them — all above 
this already subdued brightness, are strewn the 
dark points of the dead stamens — manifest more 
and more, the longer one looks, as a kind of 



134 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

gray sand, sprinkled without sparing over what 
looked, at first, unspotted light. And in all the 
ways of it the lovely thing is more like the 
spring frock of some prudent little maid of four- 
teen, than a flower; — frock with some little 
spotty pattern on it to keep it from showing an 
unintended and inadvertent spot, — if fate should 
ever inflict such a thing! Undeveloped, thinks 
Mr. Darwin, — the poor short-coming, ill-blanched 
thorn blossom — going to be a rose, some day 
soon; and, what next? — who knows? — perhaps a 
Paeony! 



WISE EXPENDITURE. 

Suppose that the ladies of the richer classes 
should come to delight no less in new pictures 
than in new dresses; and that picture-making 
should thus become as constant and lucrative an 
occupation as dress-making. Still, you know, 
they can't buy pictures and dresses too. If they 
buy two pictures a day, they can't buy two 
dresses a day; or if they do, they must save in 
something else. They have but a certain in- 
come, be it never so large. They spend that, 
now; and you can't get more out of them. Even 
if they lay by money, the time comes when some- 
body must spend it. You will find that they do 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 135 

verily spend now all they have, neither more nor 
less. If ever they seem to spend more it is only 
by running in debt and not paying; if they for a 
time spend less, some day the overplus must 
come into circulation. All they have, they 
spend; more than that, they cannot at any time: 
less than that, they can only for a short time. 

I know a most kind lady, a clergyman's wife, 
who devotes her life to the benefit of her country 
by employing lacemakers; and all her friends 
make presents of collars and cuffs to each other, 
for the sake of charity; and as, if they did not, 
the poor girl -lacemakers would probably indeed 
be " diverted " into some other less diverting 
industry, in due assertion of the rights of women 
(cartridge-filling, or percussion-cap making, most 
likely) I even go to the length, sometimes, of 
furnishing my friend with a pattern, and never 
say a word to disturb her young customers in 
their conviction that it is an act of Christian 
charity to be married in more than ordinarily 
expensive veils. 



LIBERTY NOT INDEPENDENCE. 

Of all attainable liberties, then, be sure first to 
strive for leave to be useful. Independence you 
had better cease to talk of, for you are depend- 



13^ PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

ent not only on every act of people whom you 
never heard of, who are living round you, but 
on every past act of what has been dust for a 
thousand years. So also, does the course of a 
thousand years to come, depend upon the little 
perishing strength that is in you. 

Little enough, and perishing, often without 
reward, however well spent. Understand that. 
Virtue does not consist in doing what will be 
presently paid, or even paid at all, to you, the 
virtuous person. It may so chance; or may not. 
It will be paid, some day; but the vital condition 
of it, as virtue, is that it shall be content in its 
own deed, and desirous rather that the pay of it, 
if any, should be for others. 



ESSENTIALS OF LIFE. 

There are three material things, not only use- 
ful, but essential to life. No one " knows how 
to live" till he has got them. 

These are, pure air, water, and earth. 

There are three immaterial things, not only 
useful, but essential to life. No one knows how 
to live till he has got them also. 

These are, admiration, hope, and love.* 

* Wordsworth, Excursion^ book 4th; vol. vi., p. 135. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 137 

Admiration — the power of discerning and 
taking delight in what is beautiful in visible form, 
and lovely in human character; and, necessarily, 
striving to produce what is beautiful in form, 
and to become what is lovely in character. 

Hope — the recognition, by the true foresight, 
of better things to be reached hereafter, whether 
by ourselves or others; necessarily issuing in 
the straightforward and undisappointable effort 
to advance, according to our proper power, the 
gaining of them. 

Love, both of family and neighbor, faithful, 
and satisfied. 



CANDLES. 



The final law respecting the sun, and all man- 
ner of minor lights and candles, I once explained 
to an intelligent and obliging wax and tallow 
chandler at Abbeville, in whose shop I used to 
sit sketching in rainy days, and watching the 
cart-loads of ornamental candles which he used 
to supply for the church at the far east end of 
the town, where the young ladies of the better 
class in Abbeville had just got up a beautiful 
evening service, with a pyramid of candles which 
it took at least half an hour to light, and as long 
to put out again, and which, when lighted up to 



I3o PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

the top of the church, were only to be looked at 
themselves, and sung to, and not to light any- 
body, or anything. I got the tallow-chandler to 
calculate vaguely the probable cost of the candles 
lighted in this manner, every day, in all the 
churches of France; and then I asked him how 
many cottagers* wives he knew round Abbeville 
itself who could afford, without pinching, either 
dip or mould in the evening to make their chil- 
dren's clothes by, and whether, if the pink and 
green beeswax of the district were divided every 
afternoon among them, it might not be quite as 
honorable to God, and as good for the candle 
trade? Which he admitted readily enough; but 
what I should have tried to convince the young 
ladies themselves of, at the evening service, would 
probably not have been admitted so readily; — 
that they themselves were nothing more than an 
extremely graceful kind of wax-tapers which had 
got into their heads that they were only to be 
looked at, for the honor of God, and not to light 
anybody. 



CHRISTMAS. 



For one of two things the story of the Nativity 
is certainly, and without any manner of doubt. 
It relates either a fact full of power, or a dream 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 139 

full of meaning. It is, at the least, not a cun- 
ningly-devised fable, but the record of an im- 
pression made, by some strange spiritual cause, 
on the minds of the human race, at the most 
critical period of their existence: — an impression 
which has produced, in past ages, the greatest 
effect on mankind ever yet achieved by an intel- 
lectual conception; and which is yet to guide, 
by the determination of its truth or falsehood, 
the absolute destiny of ages to come. 

Will you give some little time, therefore, to 
think of it with me to-day, being, as you tell me, 
sure of its truth? What, then, let me ask you, 
is its truth to you? The Child for whose birth 
you are rejoicing was born, you are told, to save 
his people from their sins; but I have never 
noticed that you were particularly conscious of 
any sins to be saved from. If I were to tax you 
with any one in particular — lying, or thieving, 
or the like — my belief is you would say directly 
I had no business to do anything of the kind. 

Nay, but, you may perhaps answer me — " That 
is because we have been saved from our sins; 
and we are making merry, because we are so 
perfectly good." 

Well; there would be some reason in such an 
answer. There is much goodness in you to be 
thankful for; far more than you know, or have 
learned to trust. Still, I don't believe you will 



140 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

tell me seriously that you eat your pudding and 
go to your pantomimes only to express your 
satisfaction that you are so very good. 

What is, or may be, this Nativity, to you> 
then, I repeat? Shall we consider, a little, what, 
at all events, it was to the people of its time; 
and so make ourselves more clear as to what it 
might be to us? We will read slowly. 

" And there were, in that country, shepherds, 
staying out in the field, keeping watch over their 
flocks by night." 

Watching night and day, that means; not. 
going home. The staying out in the field is the 
translation of a word from which a Greek 
nymph has her name, Agraulos, " the stayer out 
in fields," of whom I shall have something to 
tell you, soon. 

" And behold, the messenger of the Lord 
stood above them, and the glory of the Lord 
lightened round them; and they feared a great 
fear." 

My religious friends, let me write a few words 
of this letter, not to my poor puzzled workmen, 
but to you, who will all be going serenely to 
church to-morrow. This messenger, formed as 
we know not, stood above the shepherds, and 
the glory of the Lord lightened round them. 

Brighter than the sun; perhaps twenty-one 
colored, instead of seven colored, and as bright 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. I4I 

as the lime-light; doubtless you would have liked 
to see it, at midnight, in Judaea. 

You tell me not to be wise above that which 
is written; why, therefore, should you be desir- 
ous, above that which is given? You cannot see 
the glory of God as bright as the lime-light at 
midnight; but you may see it as bright as the 
sun, at eight in the morning; if you choose. 

The vision of their multitude means at least 
this; that all the powers of the outer world 
which have any concern with ours became, in 
some way, visible now: having interest — they, in 
the praise, — as all the hosts of earth in the life, 
of this Child, born in David's town. And their 
hymn was of peace to the lowest of the two 
hosts — peace on earth; — and praise in the high- 
est of the two hosts; and, better than peace, and 
sweeter than praise, Love, among men. 

Now, my religious friends, I continually hear 
you talk of acting for God's glory, and giving 
God praise. Might you not, for the present, 
think less of praising, and more of pleasing him? 
He can, perhaps, dispense with your praise; your 
opinions of his character, even when they come 
to be held by a large body of the religious press, 
are not of material importance to him. He has 
the hosts of heaven to praise him, who see more 
of his ways, it is likely, than you; but you hear 
that you may be pleasing to him, if you try: — 



142 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

that he expected, then, to have some satisfac- 
tion in you; and might have even great satisfac- 
tion — well-pleasing, as in his own Son, if you 
tried. The sparrows and the robins, if you give 
them leave to nest as they choose about your 
garden, will have their own opinions about your 
garden; some of them will think it well laid out, 
— others ill. You are not solicitous about their 
opinions; but you like them to love each other; 
to build their nests without stealing each other's 
sticks, and to trust you to take care of them. 

Perhaps, in like manner, if in this garden of 
the world, you would leave off telling its Master 
your opinions of him, and, much more, your 
quarrelling about your opinions of him; but 
would simply trust him, and mind your own 
business modestly, he might have more satisfac- 
tion in you than he has had yet these eighteen 
hundred and seventy-one years, or than he 
seems likely to have in the eighteen hundred 
and seventy-second. 

What is this Christmas to you? What Light 
is there, for your eyes, also, pausing yet over the 
place where the Child lay? 

I will tell you, briefly, what Light there should 
be; — what lessons and promise are in this story, 
at the least. There may be infinitely more than 
I know; but there is certainly, this. 

The Child is born to bring you the promise of 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. H3 

new life. Eternal or not, is no matter; pure and 
redeemed, at least. 

He is born twice on your earth; first, from the 
womb, to the life of toil, then, from the grave, 
to that of rest. 

To his first life, he is born in a cattle-shed, 
the supposed son of a carpenter; and afterwards 
brought up to a carpenter's craft. 

But the circumstances of his second life are, 
in great part, hidden from us: only note this 
much of it. The three principal appearances to 
his disciples are accompanied by giving or re- 
ceiving of food. He is known at Emmaus in 
breaking of bread; at Jerusalem he himself eats 
fish and honey to show that he is not a spirit; 
and his charge to Peter is " when they had 
dined," the food having been obtained under 
his direction. 

But in his first showing himself to the person 
who loved him best, and to whom he had for- 
given most, there is a circumstance more singular 
and significant still. Observe — assuming the 
accepted belief to be true, — this was the first 
time when the Maker of men showed himself to 
human eyes, risen from the dead, to assure them 
of immortality. You might have thought he 
would have shown himself in some brightly 
glorified form, — in some sacred and before un- 
imaginable beauty. 



144 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

He shows himself in so simple aspect, and 
dress, that she, who, of all people on the earth, 
should have known him best, glancing quickly 
back through her tears, does not know him. 
Takes him for " the gardener." 

Now, unless absolute orders had been given 
to us, such as would have rendered error impos- 
sible (which would have altered the entire tem- 
per of Christian probation); could we possibly 
have had more distinct indication of the purpose 
of the Master — born first by witness of shep- 
herds, in a cattle-shed, then by witness of the 
person for whom he had done most, and who 
loved him best, in a garden, and in gardener's 
guise, and not known even by his familiar 
friends till he gave them bread, — could it be 
told us, I repeat, more definitely by any sign or 
indication whatsoever, that the noblest human 
life was appointed to be by the cattle-fold and 
in the garden; and to be known as noble in 
breaking of bread? 



RETRIBUTION. 



Foolish moral writers will tell you that when- 
ever you do wrong you will be punished, and 
whenever you do right rewarded: which is true, 
but only half the truth. And foolish immoral 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 145 

writers will tell you that if you do right, you will 
get no good; and if you do wrong dexterously, 
no harm. Which, in their sense of good and 
harm, is true also, but, even in that sense, only 
half the truth. The joined and four-square 
truth is, that every right is exactly rewarded, and 
every wrong exactly punished; but that, in the 
midst of this subtle, and, to our impatience, slow 
retribution, there is a startlingly separate or 
counter ordinance of good and evil, — one to this 
man, and the other to that, — one at this hour 
of our lives, and the other at that, — ordinance 
which is entirely beyond our control; and of 
which the providential law, hitherto, defies inves- 
tigation. 



CARPACCIO S PRINCESS. 

In the year 1869, just before leaving Venice, 
I had been carefully looking at a picture by Vic- 
tor Carpaccio, representing the dream of a young 
princess. Carpaccio has taken much pains to 
explain to us, as far as he can, the kind of life 
she leads, by completely painting her little bed- 
room in the light of dawn, so that you can see 
everything in it. It is lighted by two doubly- 
arched windows, the arches being painted crim- 
son round their edges, and the capitals of the 



146 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

shafts that bear them, gilded. They are rilled 
at the top with small round panes of glass; but 
beneath, are open to the blue morning sky, with 
a low lattice across them; and in the one at the 
back of the room, are set two beautiful white 
Greek vases with a plant in each; one having 
rich dark and pointed green leaves, the other 
crimson flowers, but not of any species known 
to me, each at the end of a branch like a spray 
of heath. 

These flower-pots stand on a shelf which runs 
all round the room, and beneath the windows, at 
about the height of the elbow, and serves to put 
things on anywhere: beneath it, down to the 
floor, the walls are covered with green cloth; 
but above, are bare and white. The second 
window is nearly opposite the bed, and in front 
of it is the princess's reading-table, some two feet 
and a half square, covered by a red cloth with a 
white border and dainty fringe: and beside it 
her seat, not at all like a reading-chair in Ox- 
ford, but a very small three-legged stool like a 
music stool, covered with crimson cloth. On 
the table are a book set up at a slope fittest for 
reading, and an hour-glass. Under the shelf, 
near the table, so as to be easily reached by the 
outstretched arm, is a press full of books. The 
door of this has been left open, and the books, 
I am grieved to say, are rather in disorder, hav- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 147 

ing been pulled about before the princess went 
to bed, and one left standing on its side. 

Opposite this window, on the white wall, is a 
small shrine or picture (I can't see which, for it 
is in sharp retiring perspective), with a lamp be- 
fore it, and a silver vessel hung from the lamp, 
looking like one for holding incense. 

The bed is a broad four-poster, the posts being 
beautifully wrought golden or gilded rods, vari- 
ously wreathed and branched, carrying a canopy 
of warm red. The princess's shield is at the 
head of it, and the feet are raised entirely above 
the floor of the room, on a dais which projects 
at the lower end so as to form a seat, on which 
the child has laid her crown. Her little blue 
slippers lie at the side of the bed, — her white 
dog beside them. The coverlid is scarlet, the 
white sheet folded half way back over it; the 
young girl lies straight, bending neither at waist 
nor knee, the sheet rising and falling over her 
in a narrow unbroken wave, like the shape of 
the coverlid of the last sleep, when the turf 
scarcely rises. She is some seventeen or eigh- 
teen years old; her head is turned toward us on 
the pillow, the cheek resting on her hand, as if 
she were thinking, yet utterly calm in sleep, and 
almost colorless. Her hair is tied with a nar- 
row riband, and divided into two wreaths, which 
encircle her head like a double crown. The 



148 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

white nightgown hides the arm raised on the 
pillow, down to the wrist. 

At the door of the room an angel enters (the 
little dog, though lying awake, vigilant, takes no 
notice). He is a very small angel; his head 
just rises a little above the shelf round the room, 
and would only reach as high as the princess's 
chin, if she were standing up. He has soft gray 
wings, lustreless; and his dress, of subdued blue, 
has violet sleeves, open above the elbow, and 
showing white sleeves below. He comes in 
without haste, his body, like a mortal one, casting 
shadow from the light through the door behind, 
his face perfectly quiet; a palm-branch in his 
right hand — a scroll in his left. 

So dreams the princess, with blessed eyes, that 
need no earthly dawn. It is very pretty of Car- 
paccio to make her dream out the angel's dress 
so particularly, and notice the slashed sleeves; 
and to dream so little an angel — very nearly a 
doll angel, — bringing her the branch of palm, and 
message. But the lovely characteristic of all is 
the evident delight of her continual life. Royal 
power over herself, and happiness in her flowers, 
her books, her sleeping and waking, her prayers, 
her dreams, her earth, her heaven. 

" How do I know the princess is indus- 
trious?" 

Partly by the trim state of her room, — by the 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 149 

hour-glass on the table, — by the evident use of 
all the books she has (well bound, every one of 
them, in stoutest leather or velvet, and with no 
dog's-ears), but more distinctly from another 
picture of her, not asleep. In that one, a prince 
of England has sent to ask her in marriage; and 
her father, little liking to part with her, sends for 
her to his room to ask her what she would do. 
He sits, moody and sorrowful; she, standing be- 
fore him in a plain house-wifely dress, talks 
quietly, going on with her needle work all the time. 
A work-woman, friends, she, no less than a 
princess; and princess most in being so. 



TRUE ARCHITECTURE. 

True architecture is a thing which puts its 
huilders to cost — not which pays them dividends. 
If a society chose to organize itself to build the 
most beautiful houses, and the strongest that it 
could, either for art's sake, or love's; either 
palaces for itself, or houses for the poor; such a 
society would build something worth looking at, 
but not get dividends. True architecture is 
built by the man who wants a house for himself, 
and builds it to his own liking, at his own cost; 
not for his own gain, to the liking of other 
people. 



ISO PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

All orders of houses may be beautiful when 
they are thus built by their master to his own lik- 
ing. Three streets from me, at this moment, is 
one of the sixteenth century. The corner stones 
of it are ten feet long, by three broad, and two 
thick — fifty courses of such, and the cornice — 
flawless stones, laid as level as a sea horizon, so 
that the walls become one solid mass of unal- 
terable rock — four gray cliffs set square in mid- 
Florence, some hundred and twenty feet from 
cornice to ground. The man who meant to live in 
it built it so; and Titian painted his little grand- 
daughter for him. He got no dividend by his 
building — no profit on his picture. House and 
picture, absolutely untouched by time, remain 
to this day. 

On the hills about me at Coniston there are 
also houses built by their owners, according to 
their means and pleasure. A few loose stones 
gathered out of the fields, set one above another 
to a man's height from the ground; a branch or 
two of larch, set gable-wise across them; on 
these, some turf cut from the next peat moss. 
It is enough; the owner gets no dividend on his 
building; but he has covert from wind and rain, 
and is honorable among the sons of Earth. He 
has built as best he could, to his own mind. 

You think that there ought to be no such dif- 
ferences in habitation; that nobody should live 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, IS I 

in a palace, and nobody under a heap of turf? 
But if ever you become educated enough to 
know something about the arts, you will like to 
see a palace built in noble manner; and if ever 
you become educated enough to know some- 
thing about men, you will love some of them so 
well as to desire that at least they should live in 
palaces, though you cannot. But it will be long 
now before you can know much, either about 
arts or men. The one point you may be as- 
sured of is, that your happiness does not at all 
depend on the size of your house — (or, if it does, 
rather on its smallness than largeness); but de- 
pends entirely on your having peaceful and safe 
possession of it — on your habits of keeping it 
clean and in order — on the materials of it being 
trustworthy, if they are no more than stone and 
turf — and on your contentment with it, so that 
gradually you may mend it to your mind, day by 
day, and leave it to your children a better house 
than it was. 

To your children, and to theirs, desiring for 
them that they may live as you have lived; and 
not strive to forget you, and stammer when any 
one asks who you were, because, forsooth, they 
have become fine folks by your help. 



152 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 
SUNDAY A GLAD DAY. 

The serious disadvantage of eating and fine 
dressing, considered as religious ceremonies, 
whether at Christmas, or on Sunday, in the Sun- 
day dinner and Sunday gown, — is that you don't 
always clearly understand what the eating and 
dressing signify. Why should Sunday be kept 
otherwise than Christmas, and be less merry? 
Because it is a day of rest, commemorating the 
fulfilment of God's easy work, while Christmas 
is a day of toil, commemorating the beginning" 
of his difficult work? Is that the reason? Or 
because Christmas commemorates His stooping 
to thirty years of sorrow, and Sunday His rising 
to countless years of joy? Which should be the 
gladdest day of the two, think you, on either 
ground. 

When I was a child, I lost the pleasure of 
some three-sevenths of my life because of Sun- 
day; for I always had a way of looking forward 
to things, and a lurid shade was cast over the 
whole of Friday and Saturday by the horrible 
sense that Sunday was coming, and inevitable. 
Not that I was rebellious against my good 
mother or aunts in any wise; feeling only that 
we were all crushed under a relentless fate. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. I S3 



SYMPATHY NECESSARY TO COMPREHENSION. 

Your literary institutes must everywhere fail> 
as long as you think that merely to buy a book, 
and to know your letters, will enable you to read 
the book. Not one word of any book is readable 
by you except so far as your mind is one with 
its author's, and not merely his words like your 
words, but his thoughts like your thoughts. 

For instance, the other day, at a bookstall, I 
bought a shilling Shakespeare. To such degree 
of wealth, ingenuity, and literary spirit has the 
nineteenth century reached, that it has a shilling 
to spare for its Shakespeare — can produce its 
Shakespeare in a pocketable shape for that sum 
— and is ready to invest its earnings in literature, 
to that extent. Good. You have now your 
Shakespeare, complete, in your pocket; you will 
read the greatest of dramatic authors at your 
leisure, and form your literary taste on that 
model. 

Suppose we read a line or two together then, 
you and I; — it may be that / cannot, unless you 
help me. 

" And there, at Venice, gave 
His body to that pleasant country's earth, 
And his pure soul unto his Captain, Christ, 
Under whose colors he had fought so long." 

What do you suppose Shakespeare means by 



154 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

calling Venice a " pleasant " country? What 
sort of a country was, or would have been, pleas- 
ant to him? The same that is pleasant to you, 
or another kind of country? Was there any 
coal in that earth of Venice, for instance? Any 
gas to be made from it? Any iron? 

What does Shakespeare mean by a " pure" 
soul, or by purity in general ? How does a soul 
become pure, or clean, and how dirty? Are you 
sure that your own soul is pure ? if not, is its 
opinion on the subject of purity likely to be the 
same as Shakespeare's? And might you not 
just as well read a mure soul, or demure, or 
a scure soul, or obscure, as a pure soul, if 
you don't know what Shakespeare means by the 
word? 



ACTION AND FAITH. 

You will find that St. Paul's " without doubt- 
ing " — for which, if you like, you may substitute, 
"by, or in faith "—covers nearly every definition 
of right action; and also that it is not possible 
to have this kind of faith unless one can add — 
as he does — " having faith, and a good con- 
science." It does not at all follow that one 
must be doing a right thing; that will depend on 
one's sense and information; but one must be 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. I 55 

doing deliberately a thing we entirely suppose to 
be right, or we shall not do it becomingly. 



MAIN USE OF WORKS OF FICTION. 

The main use of works of fiction, and of the 
drama, is to supply, as far as possible, the defect 
of imagination in common minds. But there is 
a curious difference in the nature of these works 
themselves, dependent on the degree of imagi- 
native power of the writers, which I must at 
once explain, else I can neither answer for you 
my own question, why Scott could not write a 
play, nor show you, which is my present object, 
the real nature of sentiment. 

Do you know, in the first place, what a play 
is? or what a poem is? or what a novel is? 
That is to say, do you know the perpetual and 
necessary distinctions in literary aim which have 
brought these distinctive names into use? You 
had better first, for clearness* sake, call all the 
three " poems," for all the three are so, when they 
are good, whether written in verse or prose. All 
truly imaginative account of man is poetic; but 
there are three essential kinds of poetry, — one 
dramatic, one lyric, and one epic. 

Dramatic poetry is the expression by the poet 
of other people's feelings, his own not being told. 



156 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

Lyric poetry is the expression by the poet of 
his own feelings. 

Epic poetry is the account given by the poet 
of other people's external circumstances, and of 
events happening to them, with only such ex- 
pression, either of their feelings or his own, as 
he thinks may be conveniently added. 

The business of dramatic poetry is therefore 
with the heart essentially; it despises external 
circumstances. 

Lyric poetry may speak of anything that ex- 
cites emotion in the speaker; while epic poetry 
insists on external circumstances, and no more 
exhibits the heart-feeling than as it may be 
gathered from these. 

For instance, the fight between the Prince of 
Wales and Hotspur, in Henry the Fourth, cor- 
responds closely, in the character of the event 
itself, to the fight of Fitz-James with Roderick, 
in the Lady of the Lake. But Shakespeare's 
treatment of his subject is strictly dramatic; 
Scott's, strictly epic. 

Shakespeare gives you no account whatever of 
any blow or wound: his stage direction is, briefly, 
" Hotspur is wounded, and falls." Scott gives you 
accurate account of every external circumstance, 
and the finishing touch of botanical accuracy — 
" Down came the blow; but in the heath 
The erring blade found bloodless sheath," 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. I 57 

makes his work perfect as epic poetry. And 
Scott's work is always epic, and it is contrary to 
his very nature to treat any subject dramati- 
cally. 

That is the technical distinction, then, be- 
tween the three modes of work. But the grada- 
tion of power in all three depends on the degree 
of imagination with which the writer can enter 
into the feelings of other people. Whether in 
expressing theirs or his own, and whether in ex- 
pressing their feelings only, or also the circum- 
stances surrounding them, his power depends on 
his being able to feel as they do; in other words, 
on his being able to conceive character. And 
the literature which is not poetry at all, which is 
essentially unsentimental, or anti-poetic, is that 
which is produced by persons who have no im- 
agination, and whose merit (for of course I am 
not speaking of bad literature) is in their wit or 
sense, instead of their imagination. 

The most prosaic, in this sense, piece I have 
ever myself examined, in the literature of any 
nation, is the Henriade of Voltaire. You may 
take that as a work of a man whose head was as 
destitute of imaginative power as it is possible for 
the healthy cerebral organization of a highly 
developed mammalian animal to be. 



158 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 



STORY OF A CROCUS. 

Read with some sympathy, if you can, this 
true story of a crocus, which, being told me the 
other day by one who, whether I call him friend 
or not, is indeed friendly to me, and to all whom 
he can befriend, I begged him to write it for 
your sakes, which he has thus graciously done: — 

"It is impossible to describe the delight 
which I took in my first flower, yet it was only 
a poor, peeky, little sprouting crocus. Before I 
begin the story, I must, in two lines, make 
known my needy state at the time when I be- 
came the owner of the flower. I was in my 
eleventh year, meanly clothed, plainly fed, and 
penniless; an errand-boy in receipt of one 
shilling and sixpence a week, which sum I con- 
sumed in bread and shoe leather. Yet I was 
happy enough, living in a snug cottage in the 
suburbs of Oxford, within sight of its towers, 
and within hearing of its bells. In the back 
yard of my home were many wonders. The 
gable end of a barn was mantled with ivy, cen- 
turies old, and sparrows made their home in its 
leafage; an ancient wall, old as the Norman tower 
at the other end of the town, was rich in gilly- 
flowers; a wooden shed, with red tiles, was cov- 
ered by a thriving 'tea tree/ so we called it, 
which in summer was all blossom, pendant mauve 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 59 

colored blossoms. This tree managed to inter- 
lace its branches among the tiles so effectively 
as in the end to lift off the whole roof in a 
mass, and poise it in the air. Bees came in 
swarms to sip honey at the blossoms; I noted 
civilized hive bees, and large ones whose waxen 
cells were hidden in mossy banks in the woods 
— these had crimson and saffron tinted bodies, 
or, for variety, hairy shapes of sombre green and 
black. I was never weary of my wall-flowers, 
and bees, and butterflies. But, so it is, I hap- 
pened one day to get a glimpse of a college gar- 
den, about the end of February or the beginning 
of March, when its mound of venerable elms 
was lit up with star-like yellow flowers. The 
dark earth was robed as with a bright garment 
of imperial, oriental splendor. It was the star- 
shaped aconite, as I believe, but am not sure, 
whose existence in flower is brief, but glorious, 
when beheld, as I beheld it, in masses. Hence- 
forth, if Old Fidget, the gardener, was not at 

the back gate of St. J , I peeped through the 

keyhole at my yellow garden bed, which seemed 
flooded with sunlight, only broken by patches 
of rich black earth, which formed strange pat- 
terns, such as we see on Japanese screens of 
lacquer and bronze, only that the flowers had a 
glory of their own. Well, I looked through the 
keyhole every time I passed, and that was four 



160 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

times daily, and always with increased interest 
for my flowering aconite. But oh! trouble upon 
trouble — one day I found the keyhole stopped, 
and there was an end of my daily joy, and of 
the interest which had been awakened in me, in 
a new way, for the wonders of nature. My love 
of flowers, however, increased, and I found 
means to feed my love. I had often observed 
Old Fidget, the head gardener, and his mates, 
bring out wheelbarrow loads of refuse from the 
shrubbery and flower beds, and throw them in a 
heap along the garden wall without, where a 
long, deep trench had become the well-known 
receptacle for rubbish. Such places were com- 
mon in town suburbs in those days. The rub- 
bish consisted of cuttings of shrubs and plants, 
and rakings of flower borders, but more bounti- 
fully, of elm leaves, and the cast-off clothing of 
chestnut trees, which soon lay rotting in flaky 
masses, until I happened to espy a fragment of 
a bulb, and then the rubbish of the garden, 
which concealed sprouting chestnuts, knew no 
rest. I went, one holiday, and dug deep, with 
no other implement than my hands, into this 
matted mass. I labored, till at length, in a 
mass of closely pressed leaves, I came upon a 
perfect crocus. It lay like a dead elfin infant 
in its forest grave. I was enchanted, and afraid 
to touch it, as one would fear to commit a piece 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. l6l 

of sacrilege. It lay in its green robes, which 
seemed spun from dainty silken threads unsoiled 
by mortal hands. Its blossom of pale flesh tint 
lay concealed within a creamy opalescent film, 
which seemed to revive and live when the light 
penetrated the darksome tomb, contrasting with 
the emerald robes, and silken, pliant roots. At 
length I lifted the flower from its bed, and 
carried it to my garden plot with breathless care. 
My garden plot, not much larger than a large 
baking dish, was enclosed by broken tiles 
— a scrubby place, unsuited to my newly dis- 
covered treasure. I broke up the earth and 
pulverized it with my fingers, but its coarseness 
was incurable. I abandoned it as I thought of 
some mole-hills in a neighboring copse, and soon 
my plot was filled deeply with soft sandy soil, 
fit for my flower. And then came the necessity 
of protecting it from the searching March winds, 
which I did effectually by covering it with a 
flower-pot, and the season wore on, and soft, 
mild days set in apace, and my flower, which was 
ever uppermost in my thoughts, whether sleeping 
or waking, began to show signs of life, as day 
by day I permitted the sun to look at it, until at 
length, one sunny, silent, Sunday morning, it 
opened its glowing, golden, sacramental cup, 
gleaming like light from heaven — dropt in a dark 
place, living light and fire. So it seemed to my 



1 62 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

poor vision, and I called the household and the 
neighbors from their cares to share my rapture. 
But alas! my dream was ended; the flower had 
no fascination for those who came at my call. 
It was but a yellow crocus to them — some laughed, 
some tittered, some jeered me, and old Dick 
Willis, poor man, who got a crust by selling soft 
water by the pail, he only rubbed his dim eyes, 
and exclaimed in pity, ' God bless the poor 
boy/ " 



MEANING OF CREATION. 

What do you think they were made for? All 
these spotty, scaly, finned, and winged, and 
clawed things, that grope between you and the 
dust, that flit between you and the sky. These 
motes in the air — sparks in the sea — mists and 
flames of life. The flocks that are your wealth 
— the moth that frets it away. The herds upon 
a thousand hills, — the locust, — and the worm, 
and the wandering plague whose spots are worlds. 
The creatures that mock you, and torment. 
The creatures that serve and love you (or would 
love if they might) and obey. The joys of the 
callow nests and burrowed homes of earth. The 
rocks of it, built out of its own dead. What is 
the meaning to you of all these, — what their 
worth to you? 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 63 

I can assure you, this creation of His will bear 
more looking at than you have given yet, how- 
ever addicted you may be to the contemplation 
of nature. 



EMPLOYMENT FOR WOMEN. 

It is all very well to bring up creatures with a 
spoon, when they are one or two too many, if 
they are useful things like pigs. But how if they 
be useless things like young ladies? You don't 
want any wives, I understand, now, till you are 
forty-five; what in the world will you do with 
your girls? Bring them up with a spoon, to that 
enchanting age? 

" The girls may shift for themselves." Yes, 
— they may, certainly. Here is a picture of 
some of them, as given by the Telegraph of 
March 18, of the present year, under Lord 
Derby's new code of civilization, endeavoring to 
fulfil Mr. John Stuart Mill's wishes, and procure 
some more lucrative occupation than that of 
nursing the baby: — 

" After all the discussions about woman's 
sphere and woman's rights, and the advisability 
of doing something to redress the inequality of 
position against which the fair sex, by the 
medium of many champions, so loudly protests 



164 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

and so constantly struggles, it is not satisfactory 
to be told what happened at Cannon-row two 
days last week. It had been announced that 
the Civil Service Commissioners would receive 
applications personally from candidates for 
eleven vacancies in the metropolitan post-offices, 
and in answer to this notice, about 2,000 young 
women made their appearance. The buildings 
the court-yard, and the street were blocked by 
a dense throng of fair applicants; locomotion 
was impossible, even with the help of policemen; 
windows were thrown up to view the sight, as if 
a procession had been passing that way; traffic 
was obstructed, and nothing could be done for 
hours. We understand, indeed, that the pub- 
lished accounts by no means do justice to the 
scene. Many of the applicants, it appears, were 
girls of the highest respectability and of un- 
usually good social position, including daughters 
of clergymen and professional men, well con- 
nected, well educated, tenderly nurtured; but 
nevertheless, driven by the res angustce which 
have caused many a heart-break, and scattered 
the members of many a home, to seek for the 
means of independent support. The crowd, the 
agitation, the anxiety, the fatigue proved too 
much for many of those who attended; several 
fainted away; others went in violent hysterics; 
others, despairing of success, remained just long 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 65 

enough to be utterly worn out, and then crept 
off, showing such traces of mental anguish as 
we are accustomed to associate with the most 
painful bereavements. In the present case, it is 
stated the Commissioners examined over 1,000 
candidates for the eleven vacancies. This seems 
a sad waste of power on both sides, when, in all 
probability, the first score supplied the requisite 
number of qualified aspirants." 



THE TELEGRAPH. 

Such a beautiful invention this of Mr. Wheat- 
stone's! and I hope you all understand the 
relations of positive and negative electricity. 
Now you may " communicate intelligence'' by- 
telegraph. Those wretched girls that used ta 
write love-letters, of which their foolish lovers, 
would count the words, and sometimes be thank- 
ful for, — less than twenty — how they would envy 
you if they knew. Only the worst is, that this 
beautiful invention for talking miles off, won't 
feed people in the long run, my dears, any more 
than the old invention of the tongue, for talking 
near, and you'll soon begin to think that was not 
so bad a one, after all. But you can't live by 
talking, though you talk in the scientificalest of 
manners, and to the other side of the world* 



l66 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

All the telegraph wire over the earth, and under 
the sea, will not do so much for you, my poor 
little qualified aspirants, as one strong needle 
with thimble and thread. 



A TRUE STORY FROM THE JOURNAL OF AN ENG- 
LISHMAN. 

You do sometimes read a novel still, don't 
you, my scientific dears? I wish I could write 
one; but I can't; and George Eliot always makes 
them end so wretchedly that they're worse than 
none— so she's no good, neither. I must even 
translate a foreign novellette or nouvellette, 
which is to my purpose, next month; meantime 
I have chanced on a little true story, in the 
journal of an Englishman, travelling, before the 
Revolution, in France, which shows you some- 
thing of the temper of the poor unscientific 
girls of that day. 

" We met, a few days after he arrived, at a 
French house where we had been both invited 
to dinner. There was an old lady of quality 
present, next to whom a young officer was seat- 
ed, who paid her the utmost attention. He 
helped her to the dishes she liked, filled her 
glass with wine or water, and addressed his dis- 
course particularly to her. ' What a fool,' says 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 67 

B , ' does that young fellow make of the 

poor old woman! if she were my mother, if I 
would not call him to an account for it.' 

" Though B understands French, and 

speaks it better than most Englishmen, he had 
no relish for the conversation, soon left the 
company, and has refused all invitations to din- 
ner ever since. He generally finds some of our 
countrymen, who dine and pass the evening with 
him at the Pare Royal. 

" After the review this day, we continued to- 
gether, and being both disengaged, I proposed, 
by way of variety, to dine at the public ordinary 
of the Hotel de Bourbon. He did not like this 
much at first. ' I shall be teased/ says he, ' with 
their confounded ceremony;' but on my observ- 
ing that we could not expect much ceremony or 
politeness at a public ordinary, he agreed to go. 

" Our entertainment turned out different, how- 
ever, from my expectations and his wishes. A 
marked attention was paid us the moment we 
entered; everybody seemed inclined to accom- 
modate us with the best places. They helped us 
first, and all the company seemed ready to sacri- 
fice every convenience and distinction to the 
strangers: for, next to that of a lady, the most 
respected character at Paris is that of a stran- 
ger." 

Now for our country story. I will not trans- 



1 68 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

late the small bits of French in it; my most en- 
tirely English readers can easily find out what 
they mean, and they must gather what moral 
they may from it, for I have no space to com- 
ment on it in this letter. 

" My friend F called on me a few days 

since, and as soon as he understood that I had 
no particular engagement, he insisted that I 
should drive somewhere into the country, dine 
tete-a-tete with him, and return in time for the 
play. 

" When we had driven a few miles, I per- 
ceived a genteel-looking young fellow, dressed 
in an old uniform. He sat under a tree on the 
grass, at a little distance from the road, and 
amused himself by playing on the violin. As 
we came nearer we perceived he had a wooden 
leg, part of which lay in fragments by his side. 

" ' What do you do there, soldier? ' said the 
Marquis. ' I am on my way home to my own 
village, mon officier,' said the soldier. i But, 
my poor friend,* resumed the Marquis, ' you will 
be a furious long time before you arrive at your 
journey's end, if you have no other carriage be- 
sides these,' pointing at the fragments of his 
wooden leg. i I wait for my equipage and all 
my suite,' said the soldier, * and I am greatly 
mistaken if I do not see them this moment com- 
ing down the hill.' 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 69 

" We saw a kind of cart, drawn by one horse, 
in which was a woman, and a peasant who drove 
the horse. While they drew near, the soldier 
told us he had been wounded in Corsica — that 
his leg had been cut off — that before setting out 
on that expedition, he had been contracted to a 
young woman in the neighborhood — that the 
marriage had been postponed till his return; — 
but when he appeared with a wooden leg, that 
all the girl's relations had opposed the match. 
The girl's mother, who was her only surviving 
parent when he began her courtship, had always 
been his friend; but she had died while he was 
abroad. The young woman herself, however, 
remained constant in her affections, received 
him with open arms, and had agreed to leave 
her relations, and accompany him to Paris, from 
whence they intended to set out in the diligence 
to the town where he was born, and where his 
father still lived. That on the way to Paris his 
wooden leg had snapped, which had obliged his 
mistress to leave him, and go to the next village 
in quest of a cart to carry him thither, where he 
would remain till such time as the carpenter 
should renew his leg. ' C'est un malheur,' con- 
cluded the soldier, ' mon officier, bientot repare 
— et voici mon amie! ' 

" The girl sprung before the cart, seized the 
outstretched hand of her lover, and told him, 



IfO PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

with a smile full of affection, that she had seen 
an admirable carpenter, who had promised her 
to make a leg that would not break, that it 
would be ready by to-morrow, and they might re- 
sume their journey as soon after as they pleased. 

" The soldier received his mistress's compli- 
ment as it deserved. 

" She seemed about twenty years of age, a 
teautiful fine-shaped girl — a brunette, whose 
countenance indicated sentiment and vivacity. 

" ' You must be much fatigued, my dear/ said 
the Marquis. ' On ne se fatigue pas, Monsieur, 
quand on travaille pour ce qu'on aime,' replied 
the girl. The soldier kissed her hand with a 
gallant and tender air. ' Allons,' continued the 
Marquis, addressing himself to me, i this girl is 
quite charming — her lover has the appearance 
of a brave fellow; they have but three legs be- 
twixt them, and we have four; — if you have no 
objection, they shall have the carriage, and we 
will follow on foot to the next village, and see 
what can be done for these lovers.' I never 
agreed to a proposal with more pleasure in my 
life. 

" The soldier began to make difficulties about 
entering into the vis-a-vis. ' Come, come, friend,' 
said the Marquis, 'I am a colonel, and it is 
your duty to obey: get in without more ado, 
and your mistress shall follow.' 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 71 

" i Entrons, mon bon ami/ said the girl, ' since 
these gentlemen insist upon doing us so much 
honor.' 

" ' A girl like you would do honor to the finest 
coach in France. Nothing could please me 
more than to have it in my power to make you 
happy/ said the Marquis. 'Laissez moi faire, 
mon colonel/ said the soldier. i Je suis heu- 
reuse comme une reine/ said Fanchon. Away 
moved the chaise, and the Marquis and I fol- 
lowed. 

" ' Voyez vous, combien nous sommes heureux 
nous autres Frangois, a bon marche/ said the 
Marquis to me, adding with a smile, t le bon- 
heur, a ce qu'on m'a dit, est plus cher en Angle- 
terre.' i But/ answered I, 'how long will this 
last with these poor people?' 'Ah, pour le 
coup,' said he, ' voila une reflexion bien Anglaise; 
— that, indeed, is what I cannot tell; neither do 
I know how long you or I may live; but I fancy 
it would be great folly to be sorrowful through 
life, because we do not know how soon misfor- 
tunes may come, and because we are quite cer- 
tain that death is to come at last.' 

" When we arrived at the inn to which we had 
ordered the postilion to drive, we found the sol- 
dier and Fanchon. After having ordered some 
victuals and wine, i Pray/ said I to the soldier, 
*liow do you propose to maintain your wife and 



1^2 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

yourself ?' i One who has contrived to live for 
five years on soldier's pay,' replied he, ' can have 
little difficulty for the rest of his life. I can 
play tolerably well on the fiddle,' added he, ' and 
perhaps there is not a village in all France, of 
the size, where there are so many marriages as in 
that in which we are going to settle; I shall 
never want employment.' ' And I,' said Fan- 
chon, ' can weave hair nets and silk purses, and 
mend stockings. Besides, my uncle has two 
hundred livres of mine in his hands, and although 
he is brother-in-law to the bailiff, and volontiers 
brutal, yet I will make him pay it, every sous/ 
i And I,' said the soldier, ' have fifteen livres in 
my pocket, besides two louis that I have lent to 
a poor farmer to enable him to pay taxes, and 
which he will repay me when he is able.' 

"'You see, sir,' said Fanchon to me, 'that 
we are not objects of compassion. May we not 
be happy, my good friend (turning to her lover 
with a look of exquisite tenderness), if it be not 
our own fault? ' ' If you are not, ma douce 
amie! ' said the soldier with great warmth, ' je 
serai bien a plain dre.' " 



THE AUTHOR OF THE MIRROR OF PEASANTS. 

On the thirteenth shelf of the south bookcase 
of my home library, stand, first, Kenelm Digby's 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 173 

*' Broad Stone of Honor," then in five volumes, 
t>ound in red, the " history of the ingenious gen- 
tleman, Don Quixote of La Mancha;" and then, 
in one volume, bound in green, a story no less 
pathetic, called the " Mirror of Peasants." 

Its author does not mean the word "mirror" 
to be understood in the sense in which one 
would call Don Quixote the " Mirror of Chival- 
ry;" but in that of a glass in which a man — be- 
holding his natural heart, may know also the 
hearts of other men, as, in a glance, face answers 
to face. 

The author of this story was a clergyman; but 
employed the greater part of his day in writing 
novels, having a gift for that species of composi- 
tion, as well as for sermons, and observing, 
though he gave both excellent in their kind, 
that his congregation liked their sermons to be 
short, and his readers, their novels to be long. 

Among them, however, were also many tiny 
novellettes, of which, young ladies, I to-day be- 
gin translating for you one of the shortest; hop- 
ing that you will not think the worse of it for 
being written by a clergyman. Of this author I 
will only say, that I think him the wisest man, 
take him all in all, with whose writings I am ac- 
quainted; chiefly because he showed his wisdom 
in pleasant and unappalling ways; as for in- 
stance, by keeping, for the chief ornament of 



174 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

his study (not being able to afford expensive 
books), one book beautifully bound, and shining 
with magnificence of gplden embossing; this 
book of books being his register, out of which 
he read, from the height of his pulpit, the 
promises of marriage. " Dans lequel il lisait, du 
haut de la chaire, les promesses de manage." 

He rose always early; breakfasted himself at 
six o'clock; and then got ready with his own 
hands the family breakfast, liking his servants 
better to be at work out of doors: wrote till 
eleven, dined at twelve, and spent the afternoon 
in his parish work, or in his fields, being a 
farmer of shrewdest and most practical skill; 
and through the Sundays of fifteen years, never 
once was absent from his pulpit. 



STATION IN LIFE. 

I will ask you to consider with yourselves what 
St. James means by saying in the eighth verse 
of his General Epistle, " Let the brother of low 
degree rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich 
in that he is made low;" and if you find, as you 
generally will, if you think seriously over any 
verse of your Bibles whatsoever, that you never 
have had, and are never likely to have, the 
slightest idea what it means, perhaps you will 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 75 

permit me to propose the following explanation 
to you. That while, both rich and poor are to 
be content to remain in their several states, 
gaining only by the due and natural bettering of 
an honest man's settled life; if, nevertheless, any 
chance should occur to cause sudden difference 
in either of their positions, the poor man might 
wisely desire that it should be some relief from 
the immediate pressure of poverty, while the 
rich should esteem it the surest sign of God's 
favor, if, without fault of his own, he were 
forced to know the pain of a lower condition. 

I have noticed the frantic fear of the ordinary 
British public, lest they should fall below their 
proper " station of life." It appears that almost 
the only real sense of duty remaining now in the 
British conscience is a passionate belief in the 
propriety of keeping up an appearance; no mat- 
ter if on other people's money, so only that 
there be no signs of their coming down in the 
world. 

I should be very glad therefore if any of my 
young lady readers, who consider themselves re- , 
ligious persons, would inform me whether they 
are satisfied with my interpretation of the text; 
and if so, then how far they would consent, with- 
out complaining, to let God humble them, if he 
wished to? If, for instance, they would, with- 
out pouting, allow him to have his way, even 



176 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

to the point of forcing them to gain their bread 
by some menial service, — as, suppose, a house- 
maid's; and whether they would feel aggrieved 
at being made lower housemaid instead of upper. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 

What good Scott has in him to do, I find no 
words full enough to tell. His ideal of honor in 
men and women is inbred, indisputable; fresh as 
the air of his mountains; firm as their rocks. 
His conception of purity in woman is even higher 
than Dante's; his reverence for the filial relation 
as deep as Virgil's; his sympathy universal; — 
there is no rank or condition of men of which. 
he has not shown the loveliest aspect; his code 
of moral principle is entirely defined, yet taught 
with a reserved subtlety like Nature's own, so 
that none but the most earnest readers perceive 
the intention: and his opinions on all practical 
subjects are final; the consummate decisions of 
accurate and inevitable common sense, tempered 
by the most graceful kindness. 

That he had the one weakness — I will not call 
it fault — of desiring to possess more and more of 
the actual soil of the land, which was so rich ta 
his imagination, and so dear to his pride; and 
that, by his postern-gate of idolatry entered other 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 177 

taints of folly and fault, punished by supreme 
misery, and atoned for by a generosity and sol- 
emn courage more admirable than the unsullied 
wisdom of his happier days, I have ceased to 
lament: for all these things make him only the 
more perfect to us as an example, because he is 
not exempt from common failings, and has his 
appointed portion in common pain. 



THREE GREAT DIVISIONS OF LIFE. 

Note these three great divisions — essentially 
those of all men's lives, but singularly separate 
in Scott's, — the days of youth, of labor, and of 
death. 

Youth is properly the forming time — that in 
which a man makes himself, or is made, what he 
is forever to be. Then comes the time of labor, 
when, having become the best he can be, he 
does the best he can do. Then the time of 
death, which, in happy lives, is very short: but 
always a time. The ceasing to breathe is only 
the end of death. 

Walter Scott records the beginning of his own 
in the following entry in his diary, which reviews 
the life then virtually ended: — 

"December i%th, 1825. — What a life mine has 
been! — half educated, almost wholly neglected, 
or left to myself; stuffing my head with most 



178 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

nonsensical trash, and undervalued by most of 
my companions for a time; getting forward, and 
held a bold, clever fellow, contrary to the opin- 
ion of all who thought me a mere dreamer; 
broken-hearted for two years; my heart hand- 
somely pieced again, but the crack will remain 
till my dying day. Rich and poor four or five 
times: once on the verge of ruin, yet opened a 
new source of wealth almost overflowing. Now 
to be broken in my pitch of pride " 

He was fifty-four on the 15th August of that 
year, and spoke his last words — " God bless you 
all," — on the 21st September, 1832: so ending 
seven years of death. 

His youth, like the youth of all the greatest 
men, had been long, and rich in peace, and alto- 
gether accumulative and crescent. I count it to 
end with that pain which you see he remembers 
to his dying day, given him by — Lilias Redgaunt- 
let, in October, 1796. Whereon he sets himself 
to his work, which goes on nobly for thirty years, 
lapping over a little into the death-time. 



THREE WOMEN WHO FORMED THE MIND OF 
SCOTT. 

Three women, as far as education could do it, 
formed the mind of Sir Walter Scott. His mas- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 79 

ters only polished and directed it. His mother, 
grandmother, and aunt welded the steel. 

Hear first this of his mother: 

" She had received, as became the daughter 
of an eminently learned physician, the best sort 
of education then bestowed on young gentle- 
women in Scotland.'* The poet, speaking of 
Mrs. Euphemia Sinclair, the mistress of the 
school at which his mother was reared, to the in- 
genious local antiquary, Mr. Robert Chambers, 
said that " she must have been possessed of un- 
common talents for education, as all her young 
ladies were, in after life, fond of reading, wrote 
and spelled admirably, were well acquainted 
with history and the belles lettres, without neg- 
lecting the more homely duties of the needle and 
accompt-book, and perfectly well-bred in socie- 
ty." Sir Walter further communicated that his 
mother, and many others of Mrs. Sinclair's pu- 
pils, were sent afterward to be finished off "by the 
Honorable Mrs. Ogilvie, a lady who trained her 
young friends to a style of manners which would 
now be considered intolerably stiff. Such was 
the effect of this early training upon the mind 
of Mrs. Scott, that even when she approached 
her eightieth year, she took as much care to 
avoid touching her chair with her back, as if she 
had still been under the stern eye of Mrs. Ogil- 
vie. 



180 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

You are to note in this extract three things. 
First, the singular influence of education, given 
by a master or mistress of real power. " All her 
young ladies" (a//, Sir Walter! do you verily 
mean this?) " fond of reading,'* and so forth. 

Well, I believe that, with slight exceptions, 
Sir Walter did mean it. He seldom wrote, or 
spoke, in careless generalization. And I doubt 
not that it is truly possible, by first insisting on 
a girl's really knowing how to read, and then by 
allowing her very few books, and those absolute- 
ly wholesome,— and not amusing! — to give her a 
healthy appetite for reading. Spelling, I had 
thought, was impossible to many girls; but per- 
haps this is only because it is not early enough 
made a point of: it cannot be learned late. 

You may safely gather what I want you to no- 
tice, that Sir Walter attributes the essentials of 
good breeding to the first careful and scholarly 
mistress; and only the formality, which he some- 
what hesitatingly approves, to the finishing hand 
of Mrs. Ogilvie. He would have paid less re- 
gard to the opinion of modern society on such 
matters, had he lived to see our languid paradise 
of sofas and rocking-chairs. The beginning, 
and very nearly the end, of bodily education for 
a girl, is to make sure that she can stand and sit 
upright; the ankle vertical, and firm as a marble 
shaft; the waist elastic as a reed, and as unfa- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. l8l 

tiguable. I have seen my own mother travel 
from sunrise to sunset, in a summer's day, with- 
out once leaning back in the carriage. 

The respectability belonging in those days to 
the profession of a schoolmistress. In fact, I do 
not myself think that any old lady can be re- 
spectable, unless she is one, whether she be paid 
for her pupils or not. And to deserve to be 
one, makes her Honorable at once, titled or un- 
titled. 

In these ancient manners, however, Scott's 
mother is brought up, and consistently abides; 
doubtless, having some reverence for the Latin 
tongue, and much faith in the medicine of 
prayer; — having had troubles about her soul's 
safety also; perhaps too solicitous, at one time, 
on that point; but being sure she has a soul to 
be solicitous about, which is much; obedient 
herself to the severest laws of morality and life; 
mildly and steadily enforcing them on her chil- 
dren; but naturally of light and happy temper, 
and with a strong turn to study fpoetry and 
works of imagination. 

When do you suppose the education of a 
child begins? At six months old it can answer 
smile with smile, and impatience with impatience. 
It can observe, enjoy, and suffer, acutely, and, 
in a measure, intelligently. Do you suppose it 
makes no difference to it that the order of the 



1 82 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

house is perfect and quiet, the faces of its father 
and mother full of peace, their soft voices fa- 
miliar to its ear, and even those of strangers, 
loving; or that it is tossed from arm to arm, 
among hard, or reckless, or vain-minded persons, 
in the gloom of a vicious household, or the con- 
fusion of a gay one? The moral disposition is, 
I doubt not, greatly determined in those first 
speechless years. I believe especially that quiet, 
and the withdrawal of objects likely to distract, 
by amusing, the child, so as to let it fix its at- 
tention undisturbed on every visible least thing 
in its domain, is essential to the formation of 
some of the best powers of thought. It is 
chiefly to this quietude of his own home that I 
ascribe the intense perceptiveness and memory 
of the three-years'-old] child at Sandy-Knowe; 
for, observe, it is in that first year he learns his 
Hardiknute; by his aunt's help, he learns to 
read at Bath, and can cater for himself on his 
return. Of this aunt, and her mother, we must 
now know what we can. You notice the differ- 
ence which Scott himself indicates between the 
two: "My grandmother, who was meekness it- 
self, and my aunt, who was of a higher tem- 
per." 

" My kind and affectionate aunt, Miss Janet 
Scott, whose memory will ever be dear to me, 
used to read these works to me, with admirable 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 83 

patience, until I could repeat long passages by 
heart." 

Why admirable, Sir Walter? Surely she might 
have spent her time more usefully — lucratively 
at least — than in this manner of " nursing the 
baby." Might you not have been safely left to 
hunt up Hardiknute, in maturer years, for your- 
self? 

By no manner of means, Sir Walter thinks; 
and justly. With all his gifts, but for this aunt 
Janet, — for his mother, — and for Lilias Red- 
gauntlet, — he had assuredly been only a hunting 
laird, and the best story-teller in the Lo- 
thians. 

Scott says, " I was in my fourth year when my 
father was advised that the Bath waters might 
be of some advantage to my lameness. My 
affectionate aunt — although such a journey 
promised to a person of her retired habits any- 
thing but pleasure or amusement — undertook 
as readily to accompany me to the wells of 
Bladud, as if she had expected all the delight 
that ever the prospect of a watering-place held 
out to its most impatient visitants." 

And why should she not ? Does it not seem 
somewhat strange to you, from what you know 
of young or even middle-aged aunt Jessies of 
the present day, that Miss Scott should look 
upon the journey to Bath as so severe a piece of 



1 84 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

self-denial; and that her nephew regards her 
doing so as a matter of course? 

How old was aunt Jessie, think you? Scott's 
father, the eldest of a large family, was born in 
1729, — in this year, therefore, was forty-six. If 
we uncharitably suppose Miss Jessie the next 
oldest, she would be precisely of the age of Mrs. 
Tabitha Bramble; and one could fancy her, it 
seems to me, on the occasion of this unforeseen 
trip to the most fashionable watering-places in 
England, putting up her rose-collard neglegay 
with green robins, and her bloo quilted petticot, 
without feeling herself in the position of a mar- 
tyr led to the stake. But aunt Jessie must really 
have been much younger than Mrs. Tabitha, 
and have had the advantage of her in other par- 
ticulars besides spelling. She was afterwards 
married, and when Lockhart saw her (1820?) — 
forty years or so after this — had still " the soft- 
est eye and the sweetest voice." And from the 
thatched mansion of the moorland, Miss Jessie 
feels it so irksome and solemn a duty — does she? 
— to go to " the squares, the circus, and the 
parades, which put you (Miss Lydia Melford) 
" in mind of the sumptuous palaces represented 
in prints and pictures; and the new buildings, 
such as Prince's Row, Harlequin's Row, Bladud's 
Row, and twenty other rows besides," — not to 
speak of a real pump in a pump-room, with a 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 85 

handle to it, and other machinery, instead of the 
unpumped Tweed! 

Her nephew, however, judges her rightly. 
Aunt Jessie could give him no truer proof of 
faithful affection than in the serenity with which 
she resolves to take him to this centre of gayety. 

You are to note this, that the end of all right 
education for a woman is to make her love her 
home better than any other place; that she 
should as seldom leave it as a queen her queen- 
dom; nor ever feel entirely at rest but within its 
threshold. 



The little piece which I shall to-day further 
translate for you from my Swiss novel is inter- 
esting chiefly in showing the power with which 
affectionate and sentimental imagination may 
attach itself even to inanimate objects, and give 
them personality. But the works of its writer 
generally show the most wholesome balance of 
the sentimental and rational faculty I have ever 
met with in literature; — the part of Gotthelf's 
nature which is in sympathy with Pope and 
Fielding enables him to touch, to just the nec- 
essary point, the lower grotesqueness of peasant 



1 86 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

nature, while his own conception of ideal virtue 
is as pure as Wordsworth's. 

" Hansli always knew that as soon as he got 
home there would be enough to eat; — his 
mother saw faithfully to that. She knew the 
difference it makes whether a man finds some- 
thing ready to eat, when he comes in, or not. 
He who knows there will be something at home, 
does not stop in the taverns; he arrives with an 
empty stomach, and furnishes it, highly pleased 
with all about him; but if he usually finds noth- 
ing ready when at home, he stops on the road, 
comes in when he has had enough, or too much; 
and grumbles right and left. 

" Hansli was not avaricious, but economical. 
For things really useful and fit, he did not look 
at the money. In all matters of food and 
clothes, he wished his mother to be thoroughly 
at ease. He made a good bed for himself; and 
when he had saved enough to buy a knife or a 
good tool, he was quite up in the air. He him- 
self dressed well, — not expensively, but solidly. 
Any one with a good eye knows quickly enough, 
at his sight of houses or of people, whether they 
are going up or down. As for Hansli, it was 
easy to see he was on the way up — not that he 
ever put on anything fine, but by his cleanliness 
and the careful look of his things: aussi, every- 
body liked to see him, and was very glad to 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 87 

know that he prospered thus, not by fraud, but 
by work. With all that, he never forgot his 
prayers. On Sunday he made no brooms: in 
the morning he went to the sermon, and in the 
afternoon he read a chapter of the Bible to his 
mother, whose sight was now failing. After 
that, he gave himself a personal treat. This treat 
consisted in bringing out all his money, counting 
it, looking at it, and calculating how much it 
had increased, and how much it would yet in- 
crease, etc. etc. In that money, there were some 
very pretty pieces, — above all, pretty white 
pieces" (silver among the copper). " Hansli 
was very strong in exchanges; he took small 
money willingly enough, but never kept it long; 
it seemed always to him that the wind got into 
it, and carried it off too quickly. The new white 
pieces gave him an extreme pleasure, — above 
all, the fine dollars of Berne with the bear, and 
the superb Swiss of old time. When he had 
managed to catch one of these, it made him hap- 
py for many days.* 

* This pleasure is a perfectly natural and legitimate one, 
and all the more because it is possible only when the riches 
are very moderate. After getting that first shilling, of 
which I told you, I set my mind greatly upon getting a 
pile of new " lion shillings,'' as I called them — the lion 
standing on the top of the crown; and my delight in the 
bloomy surface of their dead silver is quite a memorable 
joy to me. 



1 88 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

" Nevertheless he had also his bad days. It 
was always a bad day for him when he lost a 
customer, or had counted on placing a new 
dozen of brooms anywhere, and found himself 
briskly sent from the door with i We've got alL 
we want/ At first Hansli could not understand 
the cause of such rebuffs, not knowing that there 
are people who change their cook as often as 
their shirt — sometimes oftener, and that he 
couldn't expect new cooks to know him at first 
sight. He asked himself then, with surprise, 
what he could have failed in, — whether his 
brooms had come undone, or whether anybody 
had spoken ill of him. He took that much to 
heart, and would plague himself all night to find 
out the real cause. But soon he took the thing 
more coolly; and even when a cook who knew 
him very well sent him about his business, he 
thought to himself, * Bah! cooks are human- 
creatures, like other people; and when master or 
mistress have been rough with them * because 
they've put too much pepper in the soup, or too 
much salt in the sauce, or when their schatz* 
(lover, — literally, treasure) \ is gone off to Pepper- 
land, the poor girls have well the right to quar- 
rel with somebody else.' Nevertheless, the 
course of time needs brought him some worse 

* Has quarrelled with them. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 1 89 

days still, which he never got himself to take 
coolly. He knew now, personally, very nearly 
all his trees; he had indeed given, for himself 
alone, names to his willows, and some other par- 
ticular trees, as Lizzie, Little Mary-Anne, Rosie, 
and so on. These trees kept him in joy all the 
year round, and he divided very carefully the 
pleasure of gathering their twigs. He treated the 
most beautiful with great delicacy, and carried 
the brooms of them to his best customers. It is 
true to say also that these were always master- 
brooms. But when he arrived thus, all joyous, 
at his willows, and found his Lizzie or his Rosie 
all cut and torn from top to bottom, his heart 
was so strained that the tears ran down his 
cheeks, and his blood became so hot that one 
could have lighted matches at it. That made 
him unhappy for a length of time; he could not 
swallow it, and all he asked was that the thief 
might fall into his grip, not for the value of the 
twigs, but because his trees had been hurt. If 
Hansli was not tall, still he knew how to use his 
limbs and his strength, and he felt his heart full 
of courage. On that point he absolutely would 
not obey his mother, who begged him for the 
love of God not to meddle with people who might 
kill him, or do him some grievous harm. But 
Hansli took no heed of all that. He lay in wait 
and spied until he caught somebody. Then 



I90 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

there were blows, and formidable battles in the 
midst of the solitary trees. Sometimes Hansli 
got the better; sometimes he came home all in 
disorder. But at the worst, he gained at least 
this, that thenceforward one let his willows more 
and more alone, as happens always when a thing 
is defended with valor and perseverance. What 
is the use of putting oneself in the way of blows, 
when one can get things somewhere else without 
danger? Aussi, the Rychiswyl farmers were en- 
chanted with their courageous little gardecham- 
petre, and if one or the other saw him with his 
hair pulled, they failed not to say, ' Never mind, 
Hansli; he will have had his dance all the same. 
Tell me the next time you see anything — I'll go 
with you — and we'll cure him of his taste for 
brooms.' Whereupon Hansli would tell him 
when he saw anybody about that should not be; 
the peasant * kept himself hid; Hansli began the 
attack; the adversary, thinking himself strongest, 
waited for him; once the thief seized, the peas- 
ant showed himself, and all was said. Then the 
marauder would have got away if he could, but 
Hansli never let go till he had been beaten as was 
fitting. 

" This was a very efficacious remedy against 
the switch-stealers, and little Mary- Anne and 

* Paysan — see above. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. I9I 

Rosie remained in perfect security in the midst 
of the loneliest fields. Thus Hansli passed some 
years without perceiving it, and without imagin- 
ing that things could ever change. A week' 
passed, as the hand went round the clock, he 
didn't know how. Tuesday, market-day at 
Berne, was there before he could think about it; 
and Tuesday was no sooner past than Saturday 
was there; and he had to go to Thun, whether 
he would or no, for how could the Thun people 
get on without him? Between times he had 
enough to do to prepare his cartload, and to con- 
tent his customers, — that is to say, those of them 
that pleased him. Our Hansli was a man; and 
every man, when his position permits it, has his 
caprices of liking and disliking. Whenever one 
had trod on his toes, one must have been very 
clever afterwards to get the least twig of a broom 
from him. The parson's wife, for instance, 
couldn't have got one if she would have paid for 
it twice over. It was no use sending to him; 
every time she did, he said he was very sorry, 
but he hadn't a broom left that would suit her. 

" That was because she had one day said to 
him that he was just like other people, and con- 
tented himself with putting a few long twigs all 
round, and then bad ones in the middle. 

" ' Then you may as well get your brooms 
from somebody else,' said he; and held to it too; 



192 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

— so well that the lady died without ever hav- 
ing been able to get the shadow of a broom from 
him. 

" One Tuesday he was going to Berne with an 
enormous cartful of his prettiest brooms, all 
gathered from his favorite trees, that is to say, 
Rosie, Little-Mary-Anne, and Company. He 
was pulling with all his strength, and greatly as- 
tonished to find that his cart didn't go of itself, 
as it did at first; that it really pulled too hard, 
and that something must be wrong with it. At 
every moment he was obliged to stop to take* 
breath and wipe his forehead. ' If only I was at 
the top of the hill of Stalden! ' said he. He had 
stopped thus in the little wood of Muri, close to 
the bench that the women rest their baskets on. 
Upon the bench sat a young girl, holding a little 
bundle beside her, and weeping hot tears. Han- 
sli, who had a kind heart, asked her what she 
was crying for. 

" The young girl recounted to him that she 
was obliged to go into the town, and that she 
was so frightened she scarcely dared; that her 
father was a shoemaker, and that all his best 
customers were in the town; that for a long 
time she had carried her bundle of shoes in, on 
market days, and that nothing had ever hap- 
pened to her. But behold, there had arrived in 
the town a new gendarme, very cross, who had 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 1 93 

already tormented her every Tuesday she had 
come, for some time back; and threatened her, 
if she came again, to take her shoes from her, 
and put her in prison. She had begged her 
father not to send her any more, but her father 
was as severe as a Prussian soldier, and had or- 
dered her to ' go in, always; and if anybody 
hurt her, it was with him they would have af- 
fairs; ' but what would that help her? — she was 
just as much afraid of the gendarme as before. 

" Hansli felt himself touched fwith compas- 
sion; above all, on account of the confidence the 
young girl had had in telling him all Jthis; that 
which certainly she would not have done to 
everybody. ' But she has seen at once that I am 
not a bad fellow, and that I have a kind heart,' 
thought he. 

" Poor Hansli! — but after all, it is faith which 
saves, people say. 

" ' Well/ said Hansli, 'I'll help you; give me 
your bag; I'll put it among my brooms, and no- 
body will see it. Everybody knows me. Not a 
soul will think I've got your shoes underneath 
there. You've only to tell me where to leave 
them — or indeed where to stop for you, if you 
like. You can follow a little way off; — nobody 
will think we have anything to do with each 
other.' 

" The young girl made no compliments. 



iQ4 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

" i You are really very good/ said she, with a 
more serene face. She brought her packet, and 
Hans hid it so nicely that a cat couldn't have 
seen it. 

"' Shall I push, or help you to pull?' asked 
the young girl, as if it had been a matter of 
course that she should also do her part in the 
work. 

" i As you like best, though you needn't mind; 
it isn't a pair or two of shoes that will make my 
cart much heavier.' The young girl began by 
pushing; but that did not last long. Presently 
she found herself in front, pulling also by the 
pole. 

" ' It seems to me that the cart goes better 
so,' said she. As one ought to suppose, she 
pulled with all her strength; that which never- 
theless did not put her out of breath, nor hin- 
der her from relating all she had in her head or 
heart. 

" They got to the top of the hill of Stalden 
without Hansli's knowing how that had hap- 
pened: the long alley seemed to have shortened 
itself by half. 

" There, one made one's dispositions; the 
young girl stopped behind, while Hansli, with 
her bag and his brooms, entered the town with- 
out the least difficulty, where he remitted her 
packet to the young girl, also without any acci- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. I9S 

dent; but they had scarcely time to say a word 
to each other before the press of people, cattle, 
and vehicles separated them. Hansli had to 
look after his cart, lest it should be knocked to 
bits. And so ended the acquaintanceship for 
that day. This vexed Hansli not a little; how- 
beit he didn't think long about it. We cannot 
(more's the pity) affirm that the young girl had 
made an ineffaceable impression upon him — and 
all the less, that she was not altogether made for 
producing ineffaceable impressions. She was a 
stunted little girl, with a broad face. That 
which she had of best was a good heart, and an 
indefatigable ardor for work; but those are 
things which, externally, are not very remarka- 
ble, and many people don't take much notice of 
them. 

" Nevertheless, the next Tuesday, when Han- 
sli saw himself at his cart again, he found it ex- 
tremely heavy. 

" ' I wouldn't have believed/ said he to him- 
self, ' what a difference there is between two 
pulling, and one.' 

" i Will she be there again, I wonder?' thought 
he, as he came near the little wood of Muri. ' I 
would take her bag very willingly if she would 
help me to pull. Also the road is nowhere so 
ugly as between here and the town.' 

" And behold that it precisely happened that 



I96 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

the young girl was sitting there upon the same 
bench, all the same as eight days before; only 
with the difference that she was not crying. 

" ' Have you got anything for me to carry to- 
day?' asked Hansli, who found his cart at once 
become a great deal lighter at the sight of the 
young girl. 

" ' It is not only for that that I have waited,* 
answered she; 'even if I had had nothing to carry 
to the town, I should have come, all the same; 
for eight days ago I wasn't able to thank you; 
nor to ask if that cost anything.' 

" ' A fine question!' said Hansli. * Why, you 
served me for a second donkey; and yet I never 
asked how much I owed you for helping me to 
pull! ' So, as all that went to itself, the young 
girl brought her bundle, and Hansli hid it, and 
she went to put herself at the pole as if she had 
known it all by heart. ' I had got a little way 
from home,' said she, ' before it came into my 
head that I ought to have brought a cord to tie 
to the cart behind, and that would have gone 
better; but another time, if I return, I won't 
forget.' 

" This association for mutual help found it- 
self, then, established, without any long diplo- 
matic debates, and in the most simple manner. 
And, that day, it chanced that they were also 
able to come back together as far as the place 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 1 97 

where their roads parted; all the same, they 
were so prudent as not to show themselves 
together before the gens d'arms at the town 
gates. 

" And now for some time Hansli's mother had 
been quite enchanted with her son. It seemed 
to her he was more gay, she said. He whistled 
and sang, now, all the blessed day; and tricked 
himself up, so that he could never have done. 
Only just the other day he had bought a great- 
coat of drugget, in which he had nearly the air 
of a real counsellor. But she could not find any 
fault with him for all that; he was so good to 
her that certainly the good God must reward 
him; — as for herself, she was in no way of doing 
it, but could do nothing but pray for him. i Not 
that you are to think/ said she, l that he puts 
everything into his clothes; he has some money 
too. If God spares his life, I'll wager that one 
day he'll come to have a cow: — he has been 
talking of a goat ever so long; but it's not likely 
I shall be spared to see it. And, after all, I 
don't pretend to be sure it will ever be.' 

" ' Mother,' said Hans one day, i I don't know 
how it is; but either the cart gets heavier, or 
I'm not so strong as I was; for some time I've 
scarcely been able to manage it. It is getting 
really too much for me; especially on the Berne 
road, where there are so many hills.' 



I98 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

" ' I dare say,' said the mother; 'aussi, why do 
you go on loading it more every day? I've been 
fretting about you many a time; for one always 
suffers for over-work when one gets old. But 
you must take care. Put a dozen or two 
brooms less on it, and it will roll again all right.' 

" ' That's impossible, mother; I never have 
enough as it is, and I haven't time to go to 
Berne twice a week.' 

" ' But, Hansli, suppose you got a donkey, 
I've heard say they are the most convenient 
beasts in the world; they cost almost nothing, 
eat almost nothing, and anything one likes to 
give them; and they're as strong as ahorse, with- 
out counting that one can make something of 
the milk, — not that I want any, but one may 
speak of it.'* 

" ' No, mother,' said Hansli, — ' they're as self- 
willed as devils: sometimes one can't get them 
to do anything at all; and then what should I 
do with a donkey the other five days of the 
week? No, mother; — I was thinking of a wife, 
— hey, what say you? ' 

" ' But, Hansli, I think a goat or a donkey 
would be much better. A wife! What sort of 
idea is that that has come into your head? 
What would you do with a wife? ' 

* " C'est seulement pour dire." I've been at least ten 
minutes trying to translate it, and can't. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 1 99 

" < Do! ' said Hansli; i what other people do, 
I suppose; and then, I thought she would help 
me to draw the cart, which goes ever so much 
better with another hand: — without counting 
that she could plant potatoes between times, 
and help me to make my brooms, which I 
couldn't get a goat or a donkey to do.' 

" ' But, Hansli, do you think to find one, then, 
who will help you to draw the cart, and will be 
clever enough to do all that? ' asked the mother 
searchingly. 

" i Oh, mother, there's one who has helped 
me already often with the cart,' said Hansli, 
* and who would be good for a great deal be- 
sides; but as to whether she would marry me or 
not, I don't know, for I haven't asked her. I 
thought that I would tell you first/ 

" ' You rogue of a boy, what's that you tell 
me there? I don't understand a word of it,' 
cried the mother. i You too! — are you also 
like that ? The good God himself might have 
told me, and I wouldn't have believed him. 
What's that you say ? — you've got a girl to 
help you 'to pull the cart! A pretty business 
to engage her for! Ah, well — trust men after 
this! ' 

"Thereupon Hansli put himself to recount 
the history; and how that had happened quite 
by chance; and how that girl was just expressly 



200 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

made for him: a girl as neat as a clock, — not 
showy, not extravagant, — and who would draw 
the cart better than even a cow could. ' But I 
haven't spoken to her of anything, however. 
All the same, I think I'm not disagreeable to 
her. Indeed, she has said to me once or twice 
that she wasn't in a hurry to marry; but if she 
could manage it, so as not to be worse off than 
she was now, she wouldn't be long making up 
her mind. She knows, for that matter, very 
well also why she is in the world. Her little 
brothers and sisters are growing up after her; 
and she knows well how things go, and how the 
youngest are always made the most of, for one 
never thinks of thanking the elder ones for the 
trouble they've had in bringing them up.' 

" All that didn't much displease the mother. 
And the more she ruminated over these unex- 
pected matters, the more it all seemed to her very 
proper. Then she put herself to make inquiries, 
and learned that nobody knew the least harm of 
the girl. They told her she did all she could to 
help her parents; but that with the best they 
could do, there wouldn't be much to fish for. 
Ah, well: it's all the better, thought she; for 
then neither of them can have much to say to 
the other. 

" The next Tuesday, while Hansli was getting 
his cart ready, his mother said to him, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 201 

"'Well, speak to that girl: if she consents, so 
will I; but I can't run after her. Tell her to 
come here on Sunday, that I may see her, and 
at least we can talk a little. If she is willing to 
be nice, it will all go very well. Aussi, it must 
happen some time or other, I suppose/ 

" ' But, mother, it isn't written anywhere that 
it must happen, whether or no; and if it doesn't 
suit you, nothing hinders me from leaving it all 
alone.' 

" ' Nonsense, child; don't be a goose. Hasten 
thee to set out; and say to that girl, that if she 
likes to be my daughter-in-law, I'll take her and 
be very well pleased.' 

" Hansli set out, and found the young girl. 
Once that they were pulling together, he at his 
pole, and she at her cord, Hansli put himself ta 
say, " t That certainly goes as quick again when 
there are thus two cattle at the same cart. 
Last Saturday I went to Thun by myself, and 
dragged all the breath out of my body.' 

" ' Yes, I've often thought,' said the young 
girl, ' that it was very foolish of you not to get 
somebody to help you; all the business would 
go twice as easily, and you would gain twice as 
much.' 

" ' What would you have ? ' said Hansli. 
' Sometimes one thinks too soon of a thing, 



202 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

sometimes too late, — one's always mortal.* But 
now it really seems to me that I should like to 
have somebody for a help; if you were of the 
same mind, you would be just the good thing 
for me. If that suits you, I'll marry you.' 

" ' Well, why not, — if you don't think me too 
ugly nor too poor? ' answered the young girl. 
4 Once you've got me, it will be too late to despise 
me. As for me, I could scarcely fall in with a 
better chance. One always gets a husband, — 
but, aussi, of what sort! You are quite good 
enough for me: you take care of your affairs, 
and I don't think you'll treat a wife like a dog.' 

" ' My faith, she will be as much master as I; 
if she is not pleased that way, I don't know 
what more to do,' said Hansli. 'And for other 
matters, I don't think you'll be worse off with 
me than you have been at home. If that suits 
you, come to see us on Sunday. It's my mother 
who told me to ask you, and to say that if you 
liked to be her daughter-in-law, she would be 
very well pleased.' 

" ' Liked! But what could I want more ? I 
am used to submit myself, and take things as 
they come, — worse to-day, better to-morrow, — 

* " On est toujours homme." The proverb is frequent 
among the French and Germans. The modesty of it is 
not altogether easy to an English mind, and would be 
totally incomprehensible to an ordinary Scotch one. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 203 

sometimes more sour, sometimes less. I never 
have thought that a hard word made a hole in 
me, else by this time I shouldn't have had a bit. 
of skin left as big as a kreutzer. But all the 
same, I must tell my people, as the custom is. 
For the rest, they won't give themselves any 
trouble about the matter. There are enough of 
us in the house: if any one likes to go, nobody 
will stop them.'* 

"And, aussi, that was what happened. On 
Sunday the young girl really appeared at Rychi- 
swyl. Hansli has given her very clear directions; 
nor had she to ask long before she was told 
where the broom-seller lived. The mother made 
her pass a good examination upon the garden 
and the kitchen; and would know what book of 
prayers she used, and whether she could read in 
the New Testament, and also in the Bible, for 
it was very bad for the children, and it was 
always they who suffered, if the mother didn't 
know enough for that, said the old woman. 
The girl pleased her, and the affair was con- 
cluded. 

* You are to note carefully the conditions of sentiment 
in family relationships implied both here and in the bride's 
reference, farther on, to her godmother's children. 
Poverty, with St. Francis's pardon, is not always holy in 
its influence : yet a richer girl might have felt exactly the 
same, without being innocent enough to say so. 



204 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

" * You won't have a beauty there/ said she to 
Hansli, before the young girl, 'nor much to 
crow about, in what she has got. But all that is 
of no consequence. It isn't beauty that makes 
the pot boil; and as for money, there's many a 
man who wouldn't marry a girl unless she was 
rich, who has had to pay his father-in-law's debts 
in the end. When one has health, and work in 
one's arms, one gets along always. I suppose ' 
(turning to the girl) 'you have got two good 
chemises and two gowns, so that you won't be the 
same on Sunday and work-days! ' 

" ' Oh, yes,' said the young girl; 'you needn't 
give yourself any trouble about that. I've one 
chemise quite new, and two good ones besides, 
— and four others which, in truth, are rather 
ragged. But my mother said I should have an- 
other; and my father, that he would make me 
iny wedding shoes, and they should cost me 
nothing. And with that I've a very nice god- 
mother, who is sure to give me something fine; 
— perhaps a saucepan, or a frying-stove,* — who 
knows ? — without counting that perhaps I shall 
inherit something from her some day. She has 
some children, indeed, but they may die.' 

" Perfectly satisfied on both sides, but es- 

* " Poele a frire." I don't quite understand the nature 
of this article. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 20$ 

pecially the girl, to whom Hansli's house, so 
perfectly kept in order, appeared a palace in 
comparison with her own home, full of children 
and scraps of leather, they separated, soon to 
meet again and quit each other no more. As 
no soul made the slightest objection, and the 
preparations were easy, — seeing that new shoes 
and a new chemise are soon stitched together, 
— within a month, Hansli was no more alone on 
his way to Thun. And the old cart went again 
as well as ever." 



LETTER ON WOMEN S WORK. 

A young lady writing to me the other day to 
ask what I really wanted girls to do, I answered 
as follows, requesting her to copy the answer, 
that it might serve once for all. I print it ac- 
cordingly, as: 

Women's work is, — 

I. To please people. 
II. To feed them in dainty ways, 

III. To clothe them. 

IV. To keep them orderly. 
V. To teach them. 

I. To please. — A woman must be a pleasant 
creature. Be sure that people like the room 



206 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

better with you in it than out of it; and take all 
pains to get the power of sympathy, and the 
habit of it. 

II. Can you cook plain meats and dishes eco- 
nomically and savorly ? If not, make it your 
first business to learn, as you find opportunity. 
When you can, advise, and personally help any 
poor woman within your reach who will be glad 
of help in that matter; always avoiding imperti- 
nence or discourtesy of interference. Acquaint 
yourself with the poor, not as their patroness, 
but their friend: If then you can modestly rec- 
ommend a little more water in the pot, or half 
an hour's more boiling, or a dainty bone they 
did not know of, you will have been useful in- 
deed. 

III. To clothe. — Set aside a quite fixed por- 
tion of your time for making strong and pretty 
articles of dress of the best procurable materials. 
You may use a sewing machine; but what work 
is to be done (in order that it may be entirely 
sound) with finger and thimble, is to be your 
especial business. 

First-rate material, however costly, sound 
work, and such prettiness as ingenious choice of 
color and adaption of simple form will admit, 
are to be your aims. Head-dress may be fan- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 207 

tastic, if it be stout, clean, and consistently 
worn, as a Norman paysanne's cap. And you 
will be more useful in getting up, ironing, etc., 
a pretty cap for a poor girl who has not taste or 
time to do it for herself, than in making flannel 
petticoats or knitting stockings. But do both, 
and give — (don't be afraid of giving; — Dorcas 
wasn't raised from the dead that modern clergy- 
men might call her a fool) — the things you 
make, to those who verily need them. What 
sort of persons these are, you have to find out. 
It is a most important part of your work. 

IV. To keep them orderly, — primarily clean, 
tidy, regular in habits. — Begin by keeping things 
in order; soon you will be able to keep people, 
also. 

Early rising — on all grounds, is for yourself 
indispensable. You must be at work by latest 
at six in summer and seven in winter. Every 
day do a little bit of housemaid's work in your 
own house, thoroughly, so as to be a pattern of 
perfection in that kind. Your actual housemaid 
will then follow your lead, if there's an atom of 
woman's spirit in her — (if not, ask your mother 
to get another). 

If you have a garden, spend all spare minutes 
in it in actual gardening. If not, get leave to 
take part of some friend's, a poor person's, but 



208 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

always out of doors. Have nothing to do with 
greenhouses, still less with hothouses. 

When there are no flowers to be looked after, 
there are dead leaves to be gathered, snow to be 
swept, or matting to be nailed, and the like. 

V. Teach — yourself first — to read with atten- 
tion, and to remember with affection, what de- 
serves both, and nothing else. Never read bor- 
rowed books. To be without books of your 
own is the abyss of penury. Don't endure it. 
And when youVe to buy them, you'll think 
whether they're worth reading; which you had 
better, on all accounts. 



THE MADONNA. 

Of the sentiments, which in all ages have dis- 
tinguished the gentleman from the churl, the 
first is that reverence for womanhood which, 
even through all the cruelties of the Middle 
Ages, developed itself with increasing power 
until the thirteenth century, and became con- 
summated in the imagination of the Madonna, 
which ruled over all the highest arts and purest 
thoughts of that age. 

There has probably not been an innocent cot- 
tage home, throughout the length and breadth 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 209 

of Europe, during the whole period of vital 
Christianity, in which the imagined presence of 
the Madonna has not given sanctity to the hum- 
blest duties, and comfort to the sorest trials of 
the lives of women; and every brightest and 
loftiest achievement of the arts and strength of 
manhood has been the fulfilment of the assured 
prophecy of the poor Israelite maiden, " He that 
is mighty hath magnified me, and Holy is His 
name." What we are about to substitute for such 
magnifying in our modern wisdom, let the reader 
judge from some slight things that chanced to be 
noticed by me in my walk round Paris. I gen- 
erally go first to Our Lady's Church, for though 
the towers and most part of the walls are now 
merely the modern model of the original build- 
ing, much of the portal sculpture is still genuine, 
and especially the greater part of the lower ar- 
cades of the north-west door, where the common 
entrance is. I always held these such valuable 
pieces of the thirteenth century work that I had 
them cast, in mass, some years ago, brought 
away the casts, eight feet high by twelve wide, 
and gave them to the Architectural Museum. So 
as I was examining these, and laboriously glean- 
ing what was left of the old work among M. 
Violet le Due's fine fresh heads of animals and 
points of leaves, I saw a brass plate in the back 
of one of the niches, where the improperly mag- 



210 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

nified saints used to be. At first I thought it 
was over one of the usual almsboxes, which have 
a right to be at church entrances (if anywhere); 
but catching sight of an English word or two on 
it, I stopped to read, and read to the following 
effect: — 

" F. du Larin 

office 

of the 

Victoria Pleasure Trips 

And Excursions to Versailles. 

Excursions to the Battle-fields round Paris." 



FRANKNESS. 



Frankness, the source of joy, and courtesy and 
civility, and passing softness of human meeting 
of kindly glance with glance. Of which Fran- 
chise, in her own spirit Person, here is the pict- 
ure for you, from the French Romance of the 
Rose, — a picture which English Chaucer was 
thankful to copy. 

" And after all those others came Franchise, 
Who was not brown, nor gray, 
But she was white as snow. 
And she had not the nose of an Orleanois. 
Aussi had she the nose long and straight, 
Eyes green, and laughing — vaulted eyebrows; 
She had her hair blond and long, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 211 

And she was simple as a dove. 

The body she had sweet, and brightly bredi 

And she dared not do, nor say 

To any one, anything she ought not. 

And if she knew of any man 

Who was in sorrow for love of her, 

So soon she had great pity for him, 

For she had the heart so pitiful 

And so sweet and so lovely, 

That no one suffered pain about her, 

But she would help him all she could. 

And she wore a surquanye 

Which was of no coarse cloth ; 

There's none so rich as far as Arras, 

And it was so gathered up and so joined together. 

That there was not a single point of it 

Which was not set in its exact place, rightly. 

Much well was dressed Franchise, 

For no robe is so pretty 

As the surquanye for a demoiselle. 

A girl is more gentle and more darling 

In surquanye than in coat. 

And the white surquanye 

Signifies that sweet and frank 

Is she who puts it on her. " 

May I ask you now to take to heart those two 
lines of this French description of Frenchness. 

" And she dared not do or say 
To any one, anything she ought not." 

That is not your modern notion of French- 
ness, or franchise, or libertas, or liberty — for all 



212 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

these are synonyms for the same virtue. And 
yet the strange thing is that the lowest types of 
the modern French grisette are the precise cor- 
ruption of this beautiful Franchise: and still re- 
tain, at their worst, some of the grand old qual- 
ities; the absolute sources of corruption being 
the neglect of their childhood by the upper 
classes, the abandonment of their own resource, 
and the development therefore of " Liberty and 
Independence," in your beautiful English, not 
French, sense. 

" Livree a elle-meme depuis l'age de treizes 
ans, habituee a ne compter que sur elle seule, 
elle avait de la vie une experience dont j'etais 
confondue. De ce Paris, ou elle etait nee, elle 
savait tout, elle connaissait tout. 

" Je n'avais pas idee d'une si complete absence 
de sens moral, d'une si inconsciente depravation^ 
d'une impudeur si effrontement naive. 

" La regie de sa conduite, c'etait sa fantaisie, 
son instinct, le caprice du moment. 

" Elle aimait les longues stations dans les 
cafes, les melodrames entremeles de chopes et 
d'oranges pendant les entr'actes, les parties de 
canot a Asnieres, et surtout, et avant tout, le 
bal." 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 213 



LARGESSE OR GENEROSITY. 

w And after, in the dance, went 
Largesse, that set all her intent 
For to be honorable and free. 
Of Alexander's kin was she; 
Her moste joy was, I wis, 
When that she gave, and said, ' have this/ 
Not Avarice, the foul caitiff, 
Was half, to gripe, so ententive, 
As Largesse is to give, and spend. 
And God always enough her send (sent), 
So that the more she gave away, 
The more, I wis, she had alway. 

" Largesse had on a robe of fresh 
Of rich purpure, sarlinish; 
Well formed was her face, and clear, 
And open had she her colore (collar), 
For she right then had in present 
Of a gold brooch, full well wrought; 
And certes, it mis-set her nought/' 



GIOTTO S POVERTY. 

Ladies mine, you observe; it is your duty to 
be lovely, not by candlelight, but sunshine; not 
out of a window or opera-box, but on the bare 
ground. 

I have just been drawing, or trying to draw, 
Giotto's " Poverty" (Saneta Paupertas) at As- 



214 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

sisi. You may very likely know the chief sym- 
bolism of the picture: that Poverty is being mar- 
ried to St. Francis, and that Christ marries them, 
while her bare feet are entangled in thorns, but 
behind her head is a thicket of rose and lily. 
It is less likely you should be acquainted with 
the further details of the group. 

The thorns are of the acacia, which, accord- 
ing to tradition, was used to weave Christ's 
crown. The roses are in two clusters, — palest 
red and deep crimson; the one on her right, the 
other on her left; above her head, pure white 
on the golden ground, rise the Annunciation 
Lilies. She is not crowned with them, observe; 
they are behind her: she is crowned only with 
her own hair, wreathed in a tress with which she 
has bound her short bridal veil. For dress, she 
has one only — one only; and that torn, and torn 
again, and patched diligently; except just at the 
shoulders, and a little below the throat, where 
Giotto has torn it too late for her to mend; and 
the fair flesh is seen through, — so white that one 
cannot tell where the rents are, except when 
quite close. 

For girdle, she has the Franciscan's cord; but 
that also is white, as if spun of silk; her whole 
figure like a statue of snow, seen against the 
shade of her purple wings: for she is already one 
of the angels. A crowd of them on each side 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 21 5 

attend her; two, her sisters, are her bridesmaids 
also. Giotto has written their names above 
them — Spes; Karitas; — their sister's Christian 
name he has written in the lilies, for those of us 
who have truly learned to read. Charity is 
crowned with white roses, which burst, as they 
open, into flames; and she gives the bride a 
marriage gift. 

" An apple," say the interpreters. 

Not so. It was some one else than Charity 
who gave the first bride that gift. It is a heart. 

And the bride has hers also, so restricted: nor, 
though she and her bridesmaids are sisters, are 
they dressed alike; but one in red, and one in 
green; and one, robe, flesh and spirit, a statue 
of snow. 

" La terza parea neve, teste mossa." 

Do you know now, any of you, ladies mine, 
what Giotto's lilies mean between the roses ? or 
how they may also grow among the Sesame of 
knightly spears ? 

You probably think St. George may advise 
some different arrangements in Hanover Square? 
It is possible; for his own knight's cloak is 
white, and he may wish you to bear such celes- 
tial appearance constantly. You talk often of 
bearing Christ's cross; do you never think of 
putting on Christ's robes, — those that He wore 



2l6 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

on Taber ? nor know what lamps they were 
which the wise virgins trimmed for the marriage 
feast? 

Suppose, learning what it is to be generous, 
you recover your descent from God, and then 
weave your household dresses white with your 
own figures? For as no fuller on earth can white 
them, but the light of a living faith, — so no de- 
mon under the earth can darken them like the 
shadow of a dead one. And your modern Eng- 
lish " faith without works" is dead. 



THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 

I wrote a letter to one of my lady friends, who 
gives rather frequent dinners, the other day, 
which may perhaps be useful to others: it was 
to this effect mainly, though I add and alter a 
little to make it more general: — 

" You probably will be having a dinner-party 
to-day; now, please do this, and remember I am 
quire serious in what I ask you. We all of us, 
who have any belief in Christianity at all, wish 
that Christ were alive now. Suppose, then, that 
He is. I think it very likely that if He were in 
London, you would be one of the people whom 
He would take some notice of. Now, suppose 
He has sent you word that He is coming to 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2\J 

dine with you to-day; but that you are not to 
make any change in your guests on His account; 
that He wants to meet exactly the party you 
have, and no other. Suppose you have just re- 
ceived this message, and that St. John has also 
left word, in passing, with the butler, that his 
Master will come alone; so that you won't have 
any trouble with the Apostles. Now, this is 
what I want you to do. First, determine what 
you will have for dinner. You are not ordered, 
observe, to make no changes in your bill of fare. 
Take a piece of paper, and absolutely write fresh 
orders to your cook, — you can't realize the thing 
enough without writing. That done, consider 
how you will arrange your guests — who is to sit 
next Christ on the other side — who opposite, 
and so on; finally, consider a little what you will 
talk about, supposing, which is just possible, 
that Christ should tell you to go on talking as if 
He were not there, and never to mind Him. 
You couldn't, you will tell me? Then, my dear 
lady, how can you in general? Don't you pro- 
fess — nay, don't you much more than profess — 
to believe that Christ is always there, whether 
you see Him or not? Why should the seeing 
make such a difference?" 



2l8 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 



PLANT-PETS. 

You have no ground of your own; you are a 
girl, and can't work on other people's? At least 
you have a window of your own, or one in which 
you have a part interest. With very little help 
from the carpenter, you can arrange a safe box 
outside of it, that will hold earth enough to root 
something in. If you have any favor from For- 
tune at all, you can train a rose, or a honeysuckle, 
or a convolvulus, or a nasturtium, round your 
window — a quiet branch of ivy — or if for the 
sake of its leaves only, a tendril or two of vine. 
Only, be sure all your plant-pets are kept well 
outside of the window. Don't come to having 
pots in the room, unless you are sick. 



A BIT OF LOVE IN REDGAUNTLET. 

You are left, by the grave cunning of the 
divine art, which reveals to you no secret with- 
out your own labor, to discern and unveil for 
yourself the meaning of the plot of Redgaunt- 
let. 

You perhaps were dissatisfied enough with the 
plot, when you read it for amusement. Such a 
childish fuss about nothing! Solway Sands, for- 
sooth, the only scenery; and your young hero 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 219 

of the story frightened to wet his feet; and your 
old hero doing nothing but ride a black horse, 
and make himself disagreeable; and all that 
about the house in Edinburgh so dull; and no 
love-making, to speak of, anywhere! 

By the way, I beg you to observe that there 
is a'bit of love in Redgauntlet which is worth any 
quantity of modern French or English amatory 
novels in a heap. Alan Fairf ord has been bred, 
and willingly bred, in the strictest discipline of 
mind and conduct; he is an entirely strong, 
entirely prudent, entirely pure young Scotchman, 
— and a lawyer. Scott, when he wrote the book, 
was an old Scotchman; and had seen a good 
deal of the world. And he is going to tell you 
how Love ought first to come to an entirely 
strong, entirely prudent, entirely pure youth, 
of his own grave profession. 

How love ought to come, mind you. Alan 
Fairford is the real hero (next to Nanty Ewart) 
of the novel; and he is the exemplary and happy 
hero — Nanty being the suffering one, under hand 
of Fate. 

Of course, you would say, if you didn't know 
the book, and were asked what should happen 
— (and with Miss Edgeworth to manage matters 
instead of Scott, or Shakespeare, nothing else 
would have happened) — of course, the entirely 
prudent young lawyer will consider what an im- 



220 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

portant step in life marriage is; and will look out 
for a young person of good connections, whose 
qualities of mind and moral disposition he will 
examine strictly before allowing his affections 
to be engaged; he will then consider what in- 
come is necessary for a person in a high legal 
position, etc., etc., etc. 

Well, this is what does happen, according to 
Scott, you know; — (or more likely, I'm afraid, 
know nothing about it). The old servant of the 
family announces, with some dryness of manner, 
one day, that a " leddy" wants to see Maister Alan 
Fairford, — for legal consultation. The prudent 
young gentleman, upon this, puts his room into 
the most impressive order, intending to make 
a first appearance reading a legal volume, in an 
abstracted state of mind. But, on a knock[com- 
ing at the street door, he can't resist going to 
look out at the window; and — the servant mali- 
ciously showing in the client without announce- 
ment — is discovered peeping out of it. The 
client is closely veiled — little more than the tip 
of her nose discernible. She is, fortunately, a 
little embarrassed herself; for she did not want 
Mr. Alan Fairford at all, but Mr. Alan Fairford's 
father. They sit looking at each other — at least, 
he looking at the veil and a green silk cloak — for 
half a minute. The young lady — (for she is 
young; he has made out that, he admits; and 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 221 

something more perhaps) — is the first to recover 
her presence of mind; makes him a pretty little 
apology for having mistaken him for his father; 
says that, now she has done it, he will answer 
her purpose, perhaps, even better; but she thinks 
it best to communicate the points on which she 
requires his assistance, in writing, — curtsies him, 
on his endeavor to remonstrate, gravely and 
Inexorably into silence, — disappears, — " And put 
the sun in her pocket, I believe," as she turned 
the corner, says prudent Mr. Alan. And keeps 
it in her pocket for him, — evermore. That is 
the way one's Love is sent, when she is sent from 
Heaven, says the aged Scott. 

" But how ridiculous, — how entirely unreason- 
able, — how unjustifiable, on any grounds of 
propriety or common sense!" 

Certainly, — certainly: Shakespeare and Scott 
can't help that; — all they know is, — that is the 
way God and Nature manage it. Of course, 
Rosalind ought to have been much more parti- 
cular in her inquiries about Orlando; — Juliet 
about the person masked as a pilgrim; — and 
there is really no excuse whatever for Desde- 
mona's conduct; and we all know what came 
of it; — but, again I say, Shakespeare and Scott 
can't help that. 



222 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 



LETTER TO A YOUNG LADY ON DRESS. 

The following bit of a private letter to a good 
girl belonging to the upper classes may be gen- 
erally useful. 

"January, 1874. 

" Now mind you dress always charmingly; it 
is the first duty of a girl to be charming, and she 
cannot be charming if * she is not charmingly 
dressed. 

" And it is quite the first of firsts in the duties 
of girls in high position, nowadays, to set an ex- 
ample of beautiful dress without extravagance, 
— that is to say, without waste or unnecessary 
splendor. 

"On great occasions they may be a blaze of 
jewels, if they like, and can; but only when they 
are part of a great show or ceremony. In their 
daily life and ordinary social relations, they 
ought at present to dress with marked simplicity, 
to put down the curses of luxury and waste 
which are consuming England. 

" Women usually apologize to themselves for 
their pride and vanity by saying, ' It is good for 
trade.'. 

" Now you may soon convince yourself, and 
everybody about you, of the monstrous folly of 
this, by a very simple piece of definite action. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 223 

" Wear, yourself, becoming, pleasantly varied, 
but simple dress, of the best possible material. 

" What you think necessary to buy (beyond 
this) ' for the good of trade,' buy and immedi- 
ately burn. 

" Even your dullest friends will see the folly 
of that proceeding. You can then explain to 
them that by wearing what they don't want (in- 
stead of burning it) for the good of trade, they 
are merely adding insolence and vulgarity to ab- 
surdity." 



THE SPIRIT OF LIFE. 

By the Word, or Voice, or Breath, or Spirit, 
the heavens and earth, and all the host of them, 
were made; and in it they exist. It is life; and 
speaks to you always, so long as you live nobly; 
— dies out of you as you refuse to obey it; leaves 
you to hear, and be slain by, the " word of an 
evil spirit," instead of it. 

It may come to you in books, — come to you 
in clouds, — come to you in the voices of men, — 
come to you in the stillness of deserts. You 
must be strong in evil, if you have quenched it 
wholly; — very desolate in this Christian land, if 
you have never heard it at all. 



224 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 



ADVENT TEACHING. 

It is to-day, the second Sunday in Advent, 
and all over England, about the time that I 
write these words, full congregations will be for 
the second time saying Amen to the opening 
collect of the Christian year. 

I wonder how many individuals of the en- 
lightened public understand a single word of its 
first clause: 

" Almighty God, give us grace that we may 
cast away the works of darkness, and 
put upon us the armor of light, now in 
the time of this mortal life/' 

How many of them, may it be supposed, have 
any clear knowledge of what grace is, or of what 
the works of darkness are which they hope to 
have grace to cast away; or will feel themselves, 
in the coming year, armed with any more lumi- 
nous mail than their customary coats and gowns, 
hosen and hats? Or again, when they are told 
to " have no fellowship with the unfruitful works 
of darkness, but rather reprove them," — what 
fellowship do they recognize themselves to have 
guiltily formed; and whom, or what, will they 
feel now called upon to reprove? 

Suppose you let the consenting bystander* 

* St. Paul. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 22$ 

who took care of the coats taken off to do that 
piece of work on St. Stephen, explain to you the 
pieces out of St. Michael's armory needful to the 
husbandman, or Georgos, of God's garden. 

" Stand therefore; having your loins girt 
about with Truth." 
That means, that the strength of your back- 
bone depends on your meaning to do true battle. 
" And having on the breastplate of Justice." 
That means, there are to be no partialities in 
your heart of anger or pity; — but you must only 
in justice kill, and only in justice keep alive. 

" And your feet shod with the preparation 

of the gospel of Peace." 

That means that where your foot pauses^ 

moves, or enters, there shall be peace ; and 

where you can only shake the dust of it on the 

threshold, mourning. 

"Above all, take the shield of Faith." 
Of fidelity or obedience to your captain, 
showing his bearings argent, a cross gules; your 
safety, and all the army's, being first in the 
obedience of faith: and all casting of spears 
vain against such guarded phalanx. 

" And take the helmet of Salvation." 
Elsewhere, the hope of salvation, that being 
the defence of your intellect against base and 
sad thoughts, as the shield of fidelity is the de- 



226 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

fence of your heart against burning and consum- 
ing passions. 

" And the sword of the Spirit, which is the 
Word of God." 

And now finish your Advent collect, and eat ' 
your Christmas fare, and drink your Christmas 
wine, thankfully; and with understanding that 
if the supper is holy which shows your Lord's 
death till He come, the dinner is also holy 
which shows His life. Eat your meat, and 
carol your carol in pure gladness and singleness 
of heart; and so gird up your loins with truth, 
that, in the year to come, you may do such work 
as Christ can praise, whether He call you to 
judgment from the quick or dead; so that among 
your Christmas carols there may never any more 
be wanting the joyfulest — 

O sing unto the Lord a new song: 

Sing unto the Lord, all the earth. 

Say among the heathen that the Lord is King: 

The world also shall be stablished that it 
shall not be moved. 

Let the heavens rejoice, 

And let the earth be glad; 

Let the sea shout, and the fulness thereof. 

Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein: 

Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice 

Before the Lord: 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 22/ 

For He cometh, for He cometh to Judge the 
earth: 

He shall Judge the world with right- 
eousness, 

And the people with His truth. 



OUR DIVINE KING. 

Whatever chemical or anatomical facts may 
appear, to our present scientific intelligences, in- 
consistent with the Life of God, the historical 
fact is that no happiness nor power has ever 
been attained by human creatures, unless in that 
thirst for the presence of the Divine King; and 
that nothing but weakness, misery, and death has 
ever resulted from the desire to destroy their 
King, and to have thieves and murderers re- 
leased to them instead. Also this fact is his- 
torically certain, — that the Life of God is not to 
be discovered by reasoning, but by obeying; 
that on doing what is plainly ordered, the wis- 
dom and presence of the Orderer become mani- 
fest; that only so His way can be known on 
earth, and His saving health among all nations; 
and that on disobedience always follows dark- 
ness, the forerunner of death. 



228 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 



COROLLARY ON THE EIGHTH PSALM. 

And now, for corollary on the eighth Psalm, 
read the first and second of Hebrews, and to 
the twelfth verse of the third, slowly; fitting the 
verse of the psalm—" lunam et Stellas quae tu 
fundasti," with " Thou, Lord, in the beginning, 
hast laid the foundations of the earth ;" and 
then noting how the subjection, which is merely 
of the lower creatures, in the psalm, becomes 
the subjection of all things, and at last of death 
itself, in the victory foretold to those who are 
faithful to their Captain, made perfect through 
sufferings; their faith, observe, consisting pri- 
marily in closer and more constant obedience 
than the Mosaic law required, — " For if the 
word spoken by angels was steadfast, and 
every transgression and disobedience received 
its just recompense of reward, how shall we 
escape, if we neglect so great salvation!" 
The full argument is: " Moses, with but a little 
salvation, saved you from earthly bondage, and 
brought you to an earthly land of life; Christ, 
with a great salvation, saves you from soul bond- 
age, and brings you to an eternal land of life; 
but, if he who despised the little salvation, and 
its lax law (left lax because of the hardness of 
your hearts), died without mercy, how shall we 
escape, if now, with hearts of flesh, we despise 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 229 

so great salvation, refuse the Eternal Land of 
Promise, and break the stricter and relaxless 
law of Christian desert-pilgrimage?" And if 
these threatenings and promises still remain ob- 
scure to us, it is only because we have resolutely 
refused to obey the orders which were not 
obscure, and quenched the Spirit which was 
already given. How far the world around us 
may be yet beyond our control, only because a 
curse has been brought upon it by our sloth and 
infidelity, none of us can tell. 



UNE PAIRE DE GANTS. 

I find the following lovely little scene trans- 
lated into French from the Dutch, in a valuable 
little periodical for ladies, " l'Esperance," of 
Geneva, in which the entirely good purpose of 
the editor will, I doubt not, do wide service in 
spite of her adoption of the popular error of the 
desirability of feminine independence. 



A PROPOS D UNE PAIRE DE GANTS. 

" ' Q u 'y a-t-il Elise? ' dit Madame, en se 
tournant du cote d'une fenetre ouverte, 011 elle 
entend quelque bruit. ' Oh! moins que rien, 



23O PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

maman! ' repond sa fille ainee en train de faire 
la toilette des cadets, pour la promenade et le 
concert. i Ce que c'est, maman? ' crie un des 
petits gargons, 'c'est que Lolotte ne veut pas 
mettre des gants.' ' Elle dit qu'elle a assez 
chaud sans cela, reprend un autre, et qu'elle ne 
trouve pas meme joli d'avoir des gants.' Et 
chacun de rire. Un des rapporteurs continue: 
1 Elise veut qu'elle le fasse par convenance; mais 
Lolotte pretend que la peau humaine est plus 
convenable qu'une peau de rat/ Cette boutade 
excite de nouveau l'hilarite de la compagnie. 
1 Quelle idee, Lolotte,' dit son pere d'un ton 
enjoue: 'montre-toi done!' 

" Apparemment Lolotte n'est pas d'humeur a 
obeir; mais les gargons ne lui laissent pas le 
choix et la poussent en avant La voila done, 
notre heroine. C'est une fillette d'environ 
quatorze ans, dont les yeux petillent d'esprit et 
de vie; on voit qu'elle aime a user largement de 
la liberte que lui laisse encore son age, pour 
dire son opinion sur tout ce qui lui passe par la 
tete sans consequence aucune. Mais bien 
qu'elle soit forte dans son opinion anti-gantiere y 
l'enfant est tant soit peu confuse, et ne parait 
pas portee a defendre sa cause en presence d'un 
etranger. 'Quoi done,' lui dit son pere, en la 
prenant par la taille, ' tu ne veux pas porter des 
gants parce qu'ils sont faits de peaux de rats! 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 23 1 

Je ne te croyais pas si folle. Le rat est mort et 
oublie depuislongtemps, et sa peau est glacee.' — 
1 Non, papa, ce n'est pas £a.' — i Qu'est-ce done, 
mon enfant? Tu est trop grande fllle pour ces 
manieres sans fagon. Ne veux-tu pas etre une 
demoiselle comme il faut.' 'Et ces petites 
mains qui touchent si bien du piano,' reprend le 
visiteur, desireux de faire oublier la gene que 
cause sa presence, par un mot gracieux. ' Ne 
veux-tu pas plutot renoncer a. la musique, et 
devenir sarcleuse?' lui demande sonpere. — 'Non, 
papa, point du tout. Je ne puis pas dire au 
juste ma pensee. . . .' Et elle se degagea douce- 
ment de ses bras; et en se sauvant, grommela: 
i Mort aux gants, et vive la civilisation!' On rit 
encore un peu de l'enfant bizarre; puis on parle 
d'autres choses, et Ton se prepare pour la pro- 
menade. Lolotte a mis les gants en question, 
'pour plaire a maman,' et personne ne s'en 
occupe plus. 

" Mais l'etranger avait saisi au passage sa 
derniere phrase, qui sans cesse, lui revenait a. 
1'esprit. Se reprochait-il devant cette enfant 
naive sa complicate a Interpretation futile que 
son note avait donnee de la civilisation? Tant 
est, que pendant le cours de la soiree se trou- 
vant un moment en tete-a-tete avec Lolotte, il 
revint a l'histoire de gants. II tacha de reparer 
sa gaucherie et fit si bien, qu'il gagna la con- 



232 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

fiance de la petite. ' Sans doute, j'en conviens, 
dit-il, il faut plus pour etre civilise que de por- 
ter des gants, mais il faut se soumettre a cer- 
taines convenances que les gens comme il 
faut. . . .' ' C'est ga, Monsieur, dit-elle, en lui 
coupant la parole, quelle est done la chance des 
gens qui voudraient se civiliser, mais qui n'ont 
pas d'argent pour acheter des gants? ' C'etait- 
la sa peine. ' Chere enfant!' dit-il tout bas. 
Et i'homme, si eloquent d'ordinaire, pressa la 
petite main sous le gant obligatoire, parce que 
pour le moment les paroles lui manquaient pour 
repondre. . . . Est-ce etonnant que, malgre lui, 
plus tard, en s'occupant de la question sociale, 
il pensa souvent a cette jeune fille? 

" Et vous, lecteurs, que pensez-vous d'elle et 
de sa question gantiere? Vous parait-elle un 
enfantillage, ou bien la considerez-vous tout 
bonnement comme une exageration? Vous at- 
tachez-vous a la surface, on bien y cherchez- 
vous un sens plus profond, comme Tami visiteur? 
Ne croyez-vous pas aussi que dans ce temps de 
' besoins multiplies/ un des plus grands services 
que les classes superieures puissent rendre au 
peuple, serait de faire distinction entre tous ces 
besoins et de precher d'exemple ?" 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$$ 
LADY JANE GREY. 

I am afraid, if it were left to me at present to 
institute, without help from kinder counsellors, 
the education of the younger children on St. 
George's estate, the methods of the old woman 
who lived in a shoe would be the first that oc- 
curred to me as likely to conduce most directly 
to their future worth and felicity. 

And I chanced, as Fors would have it, to fall, 
but last week, on an instance of the use of ex- 
treme severity in education, which cannot but 
commend itself to the acceptance of every well- 
informed English gentlewoman. All well-in- 
formed English gentlewomen, and gentlemaidens, 
have faithful respect for the memory of Lady 
Jane Grey. 

But I never myself, until the minute when I 
opened that book, could at all understand Lady 
Jane Grey. I have seen a great deal, thank 
Heaven, of good, and prudent, and clever girls; 
but not among the very best and wisest of them 
did I ever find the slightest inclination to stop 
indoors to read Plato, when all their people were 
in the park. On the contrary, if any approach 
to such disposition manifested itself, I found it 
was always, either because the scholastic young 
person thought that somebody might possibly 
call, suppose — myself, the Roger Ascham of her 



234 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

time, — or suppose somebody else — who would 
prevent her, that day, from reading " piu avanti," 
or because the author who engaged her atten- 
tion, so far from being Plato himself, was, in 
many essential particulars, anti-Platonic. And 
the more I thought of Lady Jane Grey, the 
more she puzzled me. 

Wherefore, opening, among my unexamined 
books, Roger Ascham's Scholemaster, printed 
by John Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate, An. 
15 7 1, just at the page where he gives the original 
account of the thing as it happened, I stopped 
in my unpacking to decipher the black letter of 
it with attention. 

Thus far, I have given you nothing new, or 
even freshly old. All this we have heard of the 
young lady a hundred times over. But next to 
this comes something which I fancy will be un- 
expected by most of my readers; for the fashion 
of all literary students, catering for the public, 
has hitherto been to pick out of their author 
whatever bits they thought likely to be accept- 
able to Demos, and to keep everything of sus- 
picious taste out of his dish of hashed hare. 

In accordance with which popular principle 
of natural selection, the historians of Lady 
Jane's life, finding this first opening of the scene 
at Brodegate so entirely charming, and graceful, 
and virtuous, and moral, and ducal, and large- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$$ 

landed-estate-ish — without there being the 
slightest suggestion in it of any principle to 
which anybody could possibly object, — pounce 
upon it as a flawless gem; and clearing from it 
all the objectionable matrix, with delicate skill, 
set it forth — changed about from one to an- 
other of the finest cases of velvet eloquence to 
be got up for money. 

I adjure you, gentle reader (if you are such, 
and therefore capable of receiving adjuration) — 
in the name of St. George and all saints, — of 
Edward III. and all knights, — of Alice of Salis- 
bury and all stainless wives, and of Jeanne of 
France and all stainless maids, that you put at 
once out of your mind, under penalty of sharp- 
est Honte Ban, all such thought as would first 
suggest itself to the modern novel writer, and 
novel reader, concerning this matter, — namely, 
that the young girl is in love with her tutor. 
She loves him rightly, as all good and noble 
boys and girls necessarily love good masters, — 
and no otherwise; — is grateful to him rightly, 
and no otherwise; — happy with him and her 
book — rightly and no otherwise. 

And that her father and mother, with what- 
ever leaven of human selfishness, or impetuous 
disgrace in the manner and violence of their 
dealing with her, did, nevertheless, compel their 
child to do all things that she did, — rightly, and 



236 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

no otherwise, was, verily, though at that age she 
knew it but in part, — the literally crowning and 
guiding mercy of her life, — the plaited thorn 
upon the brow, and rooted thorn around the 
feet, which are the tribute of Earth to the 
Princesses of Heaven. 



DEFINITION OF AN ARTIST. 

For all the arts of mankind and womankind 
are only rightly learned, or practised, when they 
are so with the definite purpose of pleasing or 
teaching others. A child dancing for its own 
delight, — a lamb leaping, — or a fawn at play, are 
happy and holy creatures; but they are not art- 
ists. An artist is — and recollect this definition 
(put in capitals for quick reference), — a person 

WHO HAS SUBMITTED TO A LAW WHICH IT WAS 
PAINFUL TO OBEY, THAT HE MAY BESTOW A DE- 
LIGHT WHICH IT IS GRACIOUS TO BESTOW. 



YOUNG UNMARRIED WOMEN. 

While I have shown in all former writings 
that I hold the power of such to be the greatest, 
because the purest, of all social ones, I must as 
definitely now warn them against any manifesta- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 237 

tion of feeling or principle tending to break the 
unity of their home circles. They are bound ta 
receive their father's friends as their own, and 
to comply, in all sweet and subjected ways, with 
the wishes and habits of their parents; remain- 
ing calmly certain that the law of God, for them, 
is that while they remain at home they shall be 
spirits of peace and humility beneath its roof. 
In all rightly ordered households, the confi- 
dence between the parent and child is such that 
in the event of a parent's wish becoming con- 
trary to a child's feeling of its general duty, 
there would be no fear or discomfort on the 
child's part in expressing its thoughts. The 
moment these are necessarily repressed, there is 
wrong somewhere; and in houses ordered ac- 
cording to the ways of modern fashionable life, 
there must be wrong, often and everywhere. 
But the main curse of modern society is that, 
beginning by training its youth to be " inde- 
pendent " and disobedient, this carefully culti- 
vated independence shows itself, of course, by 
rejecting whatever is noble and honorable in 
their father's houses, and never by healing or 
atoning what is faultful. 

Therefore, they require first the graces of gen* 
tleness and humility; nor, on the whole, much, 
independent action of any kind; but only the 
quiet resolve to find out what is absolutely right, 



238 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

and so far as it may be kindly and inoffensively 
practised, to fulfil it at home; and so far as it 
may be modestly and decorously uttered, to ex- 
press the same abroad. And a well-bred young 
lady has always personal power enough of favor 
and discouragement, among persons of her own 
age, to satisfy the extremest demands of con- 
science in this direction. 



A WIFE S NOTION. 

A man shouldn't vex his wife, if he can help 
it; but why will she be vexed ? If she is a nice 
English girl, she has pretty surely been repeating 
to herself, with great unction, for some years 
back, that highly popular verse, — 

" The trivial round, the common task, 
Will give us all we ought to ask, — 
Room to deny ourselves; a road 
To bring us daily nearer God." 

Women have so long been in the habit of using 
pretty words without ever troubling themselves 
to understand them, that they now revolt from 
the effort, as if it were an impiety. So far as she 
had any meaning at all, it was that until she was 
made an angel of, and had nothing to do but be 
happy, — dressing herself and her children becom- 
ingly, and leaving cards on her acquaintances, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 239 

were sufficiently acceptable services to him, for 
which, trivial though they were, he would reward 
her with immediate dinner and everlasting glory. 
That was your wife's real notion of the matter, 
and modern Christian women's generally, so far 
as they have got any notions at all under their 
bonnets and the skins of the dead robins the) 
have stuck in them. 



ST. GEORGE S ORDERS TO A SCHOOL-GIRL, 

The rules of St. George's Company are non^ 
other than those which at your baptism you* 
godfather and godmother pioims,ed to see that 
you should obey — namely, the rules of conduct 
given to all his disciple by Christ, so far as, ac- 
cording to your .^gco, you can understand or 
practise them. 

St. George's ^rst order to you, supposing you: 
were put undi,r his charge, would be that you 
should alwaj a, in whatever you do, endeavor ta 
please Christ (and He is quite easily pleased if 
you try); but in attempting this, you will instant- 
ly find yourself likely to displease many of your 
friends or relations; and St. George's second or- 
der to you is that in whatever you do, you con- 
sider what is kind and dutiful to them also, and 
that yoi] hold it for a sure rule that no manner 



240 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

of disobedience to your parents, or of disrespect 
and presumption toward your friends, can be 
pleasing to God. You must therefore be doubly 
submissive; first in your own will and purpose 
to the law of Christ; then in the carrying out of 
your purpose, to the pleasure and orders of the 
persons whom He has given you for superiors. 
And you are not to submit to them sullenly, but 
joyfully and heartily, keeping nevertheless your 
own purpose clear, so soon as it becomes proper 
for you to carry it out. 

Under these conditions, here are a few orders 
for you to begin with: 

i st. Keep absolute calm of temper, under all 
chances; receiving everything that is provoking 
and disagreeable to you as coming directly from 
Christ's hand: and the more it is like to provoke 
you, thank Him for it the more; as a young 
soldier would his general for trusting him with a 
hard place to hold on the rampart. And remem- 
ber, it does not in the least matter what happens 
to you, — whether a clumsy schoolfellow tears 
your dress, or a shrewd one laughs at you, or the 
governess doesn't understand you. The one 
thing needful is that none of these things should 
vex you. For your mind is at this time of your 
youth crystallizing like sugar-candy; and the 
least jar to it flaws the crystal, and that perma- 
nently. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 241 

2d. Say to yourselves every morning, just after 
your prayers: " Whoso forsaketh not all that he 
hath, cannot be my disciple." That is exactly 
and completely true: meaning that you are to 
give all you have to Christ to take care of for 
you. Then if He doesn't take care of it, of 
course you know it wasn't worth anything. And 
if He takes anything from you, you know you 
are better without it. You will not indeed, at 
your age, have to give up houses, or lands, or 
boats, or nets, but you may perhaps break your 
favorite teacup, or lose your favorite thimble, 
and might be vexed about it, but for this second 
St. George's precept. 

3d. What, after this surrender, you find in- 
trusted to you, take extreme care of, and make 
as useful as possible. The greater part of all 
they have is usually given to grown-up people by- 
Christ, merely that they may give it away again: 
but school-girls, for the most part, are likely ta 
have little more than what is needed for them- 
selves: of which, whether books, dresses, or 
pretty room furniture, you are to take extreme 
care, looking on yourself, indeed, practically, as 
a little housemaid set to keep Christ's books and 
room in order, and not as yourself the mistress 
of anything. 

4th. Dress as plainly as your parents will allow 
you: but in bright colors (if they become you), 



242 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

and in the best materials,— that is to say, in 
those which will wear longest. When you are 
really in want of a new dress, buy it (or make it) 
in the fashion: but never quit an old one merely 
because it has become unfashionable. And if 
the fashion be costly, you must not follow it. 
You may wear broad stripes or narrow, bright 
colors or dark, short petticoats or long (in moder- 
ation) as the public wish you; but you must 
not buy yards of useless stuff to make a knot or 
a flounce of, nor drag them behind you over the 
ground. And your walking dress must never 
touch the ground at all. I have lost much of 
the faith I once had in the common sense and 
even in the personal delicacy of the present race 
of average English women, by seeing how they 
will allow their dresses to sweep the streets, if it 
is the fashion to be scavengers. 

5th. If you can afford it, get your dresses made 
by a good dressmaker, with utmost attainable 
precision and perfection: but let this good dress- 
maker be a poor person, living in the country; 
not a rich person living in a large house in Lon- 
don. 

6th. Learn dressmaking yourself, with pains 
and time; and use a part of every day in needle- 
work, making as pretty dresses as you can for 
poor people who have not time nor taste to make 
them nicely for themselves. You are to show 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 243 

them in your own wearing what is most right and 
graceful; and to help them to choose what will 
be prettiest and most becoming in their own sta- 
tion. If they see that you never try to dress 
above yours, they will not try to dress above 
theirs. 

7th. Never seek for amusement, but be always 
ready to be amused. The least thing has play 
in it — the slightest word, wit, when your hands 
are busy and your heart is free. But if you 
make the aim of your life amusement, the day 
will come when all the agonies of a pantomime 
will not bring you an honest laugh. Play active- 
ly and gayly; and cherish, without straining, the 
natural powers of jest in others and yourselves; 
— remembering all the while that your hand is 
every instant on the helm of the ship of your life, 
and that the Master, on the far shore of Araby 
the blest, looks for its sail on the horizon, — to its 
hour. 

"God made you a lady?" Yes, he has put 
you, that is to say, in a position in which you 
may learn to speak your own language beauti- 
fully; to be accurately acquainted with the ele- 
ments of other languages; to behave with grace, 
tact, and sympathy to all around you; to know 
the history of your country, the commands of 
its religion, and the duties of its race. If you 
obey His will in learning these things, you will 



244 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

obtain the power of becoming a true "lady;** 
and you will become one, if while you learn these 
things you set yourself, with all the strength of 
your youth and womanhood, to serve His ser- 
vants, until the day come when He calls you to 
say, " Well done, good and faithful servant: enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord." 

All education must be moral first; intellectual 
secondarily. Intellectual, before — (much more 
without) — moral education, is, in completeness, 
impossible; and in incompleteness, a calamity. 

Moral education begins in making the crea- 
ture to be educated, clean, and obedient. This 
must be done thoroughly, and at any cost, and 
with any kind of compulsion rendered necessary 
by the nature of the animal, be it dog, child, or 
man. 

Moral education consists next in making the 
creature practically serviceable to other crea- 
tures, according to the nature and extent of its 
own capacities; taking care that these be 
healthily developed in such service. It may be 
a question how long, and to what extent, boys 
and girls of fine race may be allowed to run in 
the paddock before they are broken; but as- 
suredly the sooner they are put to such work as 
they are able for, the better. Moral education 
is summed when the creature has been made to 
do its work with delight, and thoroughly: but 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 245 

this cannot be until some degree of intellectual 
education has been given also. 

Intellectual education consists in giving the 
creature the faculties of admiration, hope, and 
love. 

These are to be taught by the study of beau- 
tiful Nature; the sight and history of noble per- 
sons; and the setting forth of noble objects of 
action. 

Since all noble persons hitherto existent in the 
world have trusted in the government of it by a 
supreme Spirit, and in that trust, or faith, have 
performed all their great actions, the history of 
these persons will finally mean the history of 
their faith; and the sum of intellectual educa- 
tion will be the separation of what is inhuman 
in such faiths, and therefore perishing, from 
what is human, and, for human creatures, eter- 
nally true. 

The children are told to give up all they have, 
and never to be vexed. That is the first rule of 
St. George, as applied to children, — to hold 
their childish things for God, and never to mind 
losing anything. 



CHRIST S LAW CONCERNING PROPERTY. 

But the parents and guardians are not yet, it 
seems to me, well aware that St. George's law 



246 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

is the same for grown-up people as for little ones. 
To hold all they have, — all their grown-up 
things, — for God, and never to mind losing any- 
thing — silver or gold, house or lands, son or 
daughter; — law seldom so much as even at- 
tempted to be observed! And, indeed, circum- 
stances have chanced, since I wrote that Fors, 
which have caused me to consider much how 
curious it is that when good people lose their 
own son or daughter, even though they have 
reason to think God has found what they have 
lost, they are greatly vexed about it; but if they 
only hear of other people's losing their sons or 
daughters, — though they have reason to think 
God has not found them, but that the wild beasts 
of the wilderness have torn them, — for such loss 
they are usually not vexed in anywise. To-day, 
nevertheless, I am not concerned with the stew- 
ardship of these spirit-treasures, but only with the 
stewardship of money or lands, and proper man- 
ner of holding such by Christians. For it is im- 
portant that the accepted Companions should 
now understand that although, in creed, I ask 
only so much consent as may include Christian, 
Jew, Turk, and Greek, — in conduct, the Society 
is to be regulated at least by the law of Christ. 
It may be, that as we fix our laws in further de- 
tail, we may add some of the heavier yokes of 
Lycurgus, or Numa, or John the Baptist: and. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2\J 

though the Son of man came eating and drink- 
ing, and turning water into wine, we may think 
it needful to try how some of us like living on 
locusts, or wild honey, or Spartan broth. But 
at least, I repeat, we are here, in England, to 
obey the law of Christ, if nothing more. 

Now the law of Christ about money and other 
forms of personal wealth, is taught, first in para- 
bles, in which He likens himself to the masters 
of this world, and explains the conduct which 
Christians should hold to Him, their heavenly 
Master, by that which they hold on earth to 
earthly ones. 

He likens himself, in these stories, several 
times, to unkind or unjust masters, and espe- 
cially to hard and usurious ones. And the gist 
of the parables in each case is, " If ye do so, 
and are thus faithful to hard and cruel masters 
in earthly things, how much more should ye 
be faithful to a merciful Master in heavenly 
things? " 

Which argument, evil-minded men wrest, as 
they do also the other scriptures, to their own 
destruction. And instead of reading, for in- 
stance, in the parable of the Usurer, the intended 
lesson of industry in the employment of God's 
gifts, they read in it a justification of the crime 
which, in other parts of the same scripture, is 
directly forbidden. And there is indeed no 



248 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

doubt that, if the other prophetic parts of the 
Bible be true, these stories are so worded that 
they may be touchstones of the heart. They 
are nets which sift the kindly reader from the 
selfish. The parable of the Usurer is like a mill 
sieve: the fine flour falls through it, bolted finer; 
the chaff sticks in it. 

Therefore, the only way to understand these 
difficult parts of the Bible, or even to approach 
them with safety, is first to read and obey the 
easy ones. Then the difficult ones all become 
beautiful and clear — otherwise they remain ven- 
omous enigmas, with a Sphinx of destruction 
provoking false souls to read them, and ruining 
them in their own replies. 



FELLOW TRAVELLERS. 

I had driven from Brant wood in early morn- 
ing down the valley of the Crake, and took train 
first at the Ulverston station, settling myself in 
the corner of a carriage next the sea, for better 
prospect thereof. In the other corner was a 
respectable, stolid, middle-aged man reading his 
paper. 

I had left my Coniston lake in dashing ripples 
under a south wind, thick with rain; but the 
tide lay smooth and silent along the sands ^ 



•PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 249 

melancholy in absolute pause of motion, nor 
ebb nor flow distinguishable; — here and there > 
among the shelves of gray shore, a little ruffling 
of their apparent pools marked stray threadings 
of river-current. 

At Grange, talking loud, got in two young 
coxcombs; who reclined themselves on the op- 
posite cushions. One had a thin stick, with 
which, in a kind of St. Vitus's dance, partly af- 
fectation of nonchalance, partly real fever pro- 
duced by the intolerable idleness of his mind 
and body, he rapped on the elbow of his seat, 
poked at the button-holes of the window strap, 
and switched his boots, or the air, all the way 
from Grange to the last station before Carnforth, 
— he and his friend talking yacht and regatta, 
listlessly; — the St. Vitus's.^ meantime, dancing 
one expressing his opinion that " the most dan- 
gerous thing to do on these lakes was going be- 
fore the wind." The respectable man went on 
reading his paper, without notice of them. None 
of the three ever looked out of the windows at 
sea or shore. There was not much to look at, 
indeed, through the driving, and gradually 
closer-driven, rain, — except the drifting about of 
the seagulls, and their quiet dropping into the 
pools, their wings kept open for an instant till 
their breasts felt the water well; then closing 



250 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

their petals of white light, like suddenly shut 
water flowers. 

The two regatta men got out, in drenching 
rain, on the coverless platform at the station be- 
fore Carnforth, and all the rest of us at Carnforth 
itself, to wait for the up train. The shed on 
the up-line side, even there, is small, in which 
a crowd of third-class passengers were packed 
close by the outside drip. I did not see one, 
out of some twenty-five or thirty persons, tidily 
dressed, nor one with a contented and serenely 
patient look. Lines of care, of mean hardship, 
of comfortless submission, of gnawing anxiety, 
or ill-temper, characterized every face. 

The train came up, and my poor companions 
were shuffled into it speedily, in heaps. I found 
an empty first-class carriage for myself: wonder- 
ing how long universal suffrage would allow it- 
self to be packed away in heaps, for my con- 
venience. 

At Lancaster, a father and daughter got in; 
presumably commercial. Father stoutly built 
and firm-featured, sagacious and cool. The 
girl hard and common; well dressed, except that 
her hat was cocked too high on her hair. They 
both read papers all the way to Warrington. I 
was not myself employed much better; the in- 
cessant rain making the windows a mere wilder- 
ness of dirty dribblings; and neither Preston nor 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$l 

Wigan presenting anything lively to behold, I 
had settled myself to Mrs. Brown on Spelling 
Bees (an unusually forced and poor number of 
Mrs. Brown, by the way). 

I had to change at Warrington for Chester. 
The weather bettered a little, while I got a cup 
of tea and slice of bread in the small refresh- 
ment room; contemplating, the while, in front 
of me, the panels of painted glass on its swing- 
ing doors, which represented two troubadours, 
in broadly striped blue and yellow breeches, 
purple jackets, and plumed caps; with golden- 
hilted swords, and enormous lyres. Both had 
soft curled moustaches, languishing eyes, open 
mouths, and faultless legs. Meanwhile lounged 
at the counter behind me, much bemused in 
beer, a perfect example of the special type of 
youthful blackguard now developing generally in 
England; more or less blackly pulpous and 
swollen in all the features, and with mingled ex- 
pression of intense grossness and intense impu- 
dence, — half pig, half jackdaw. 

There got in with me, when the train was 
ready, a middle-class person of commercial-trav- 
eller aspect, who had possessed himself of a 
" Graphic" from the newsboy; and whom I pres- 
ently forgot, in examining the country on a line 
new to me, which became quickly, under gleams 
of broken sunlight, of extreme interest. Azure- 



252 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

green fields of deep corn; undulations of sand- 
stone hill, with here and there a broken crag at 
the edge of a cutting; presently the far glitter- 
ing of the Solway-like sands of Dee, and rounded 
waves of the Welsh hills on the southern hori- 
zon, formed a landscape more fresh and fair than 
I have seen for many a day, from any great line 
of English rail. When I looked back to my 
fellow-traveller, he was sprawling all his lengtn 
on the cushion of the back seat, with his boots 
on his " Graphic," — not to save the cushions as- 
suredly, but in the foul modern carelessness of 
everything which we have " done with" for the 
moment; — his face clouded with sullen thought, 
as of a person helplessly in difficulty, and not 
able to give up thinking how to avoid the un- 
avoidable. 

In a minute or two more I found myself 
plunged into the general dissolution and whirl- 
pool of porters, passengers, and crook-boned 
trucks, running round corners against one's legs, 
of the great Chester station. A simply-dressed 
upper-class girl of sixteen or seventeen, strictly 
and swiftly piloting her little sister through the 
populace, was the first human creature I had 
yet seen, on whom sight could rest without pain. 
The rest of the crowd was a mere dismal fer- 
mentation of the Ignominious. 

The train to Ruabon was crowded, and I was 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 253 

obliged to get into a carriage with two cadaver- 
ous sexagenarian spinsters, who had been keep- 
ing the windows up, all but a chink, for fear a 
drop of rain or breath of south wind should 
come in, and were breathing the richest com- 
pound of products of their own indigestion. 
Pretending to be anxious about the construction 
of the train, I got the farther window down, and 
my body well out of it; then put it only half- 
way up when the train left, and kept putting my 
head out without my hat; so as, if possible, to 
impress my fellow-passengers with the immi- 
nence of a collision, which could only be averted 
by extreme watchfulness on my part. Then re- 
questing, with all the politeness I could muster, 
to be allowed to move a box with which they 
had occupied the corner-seat — " that I might sit 
face to the air" — I got them ashamed to ask 
that the window might be shut up again; but 
they huddled away into the opposite corner to 
make me understand how they suffered from the 
draught. Presently they got out two bags of blue 
grapes, and ate away unanimously, availing them- 
selves of my open window to throw out rolled-up 
pips and skins. 

General change, to my extreme relief, as to 
theirs, was again required at Ruabon, effected 
by a screwing backward and forward, for three- 
quarters of an hour, of carriages which one was 



254 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

expecting every five minutes to get into; and 
which were puffed and pushed away again the 
moment one opened the door, with loud calls of 
" Stand back there/ ' A group of half a dozen 
children, from eight to fourteen — the girls all in 
straw hats, with long hanging scarlet ribands — 
were more or less pleasant to see meanwhile; 
and sunshine through the puffs of petulant and 
cross-purposed steam, promised a pleasant run 
to Llangollen. 

I had only the conventional " business man 
with a paper " for this run; and on his leaving 
the carriage at Llangollen, was just closing the 
door, thinking to have both windows at com- 
mand, when my hand was stayed by the father 
of a family of four children, who, with their 
mother and aunt, presently filled the carriage, 
the children fitting or scrambling in anywhere, 
with expansive kicks and lively struggles. They 
belonged to the lower middle-class; the mother 
an ideal of the worthy commonplace, evidently 
hard put to it to make both ends meet, and 
wholly occupied in family concerns; her face 
fixed in the ignoble gravity of virtuous persons 
to whom their own troublesome households have 
become monasteries. The father, slightly more 
conscious of external things, submitting benevo- 
lently to his domestic happiness out on its an- 
nual holiday. The children ugly, fidgety, and ill- 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$$ 

bred, but not unintelligent, — full of questionings, 
" when " they were to get here, or there ? how 
many rails there were on the line; which side 
the station was on, and who was to meet them. 
In such debate, varied by bodily contortions in 
every direction, they contrived to pass the half- 
hour which took us through the vale of Llangol- 
len, past some of the loveliest brook and glen 
scenery in the world. But neither the man, the 
woman, nor any one of the children, looked out 
of the window once the whole way. 

They got out at Corwen, leaving me to myself 
for the run past Bala lake and down the Dolgelly 
valley; but more sorrowful than of late has been 
my wont, in the sense of my total isolation from 
the thoughts and ways of the present English 
people. For I was perfectly certain that among 
all the crowd of living creatures whom I had 
that day seen, — scarlet ribands and all, — there 
was not one to whom I could have spoken a word 
on any subject interesting to me, which would 
have been intelligible to them. 

But the first broad sum of fact, for the sake of 
which I have given this diary, is that among 
certainly not less than some seven or eight hun- 
dred people, seen by me in the course of this 
day, I saw not one happy face, and several hun- 
dreds of entirely miserable ones. The second 
broad sum of fact is, that out of the few, — not 



256 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES, 

happy, — but more or less spirited and compla- 
cent faces I saw, among the lower and the mer- 
cantile classes, what life or spirit they had de- 
pended on a peculiar cock-on-a-dunghill char- 
acter of impudence, which meant a total inability 
to conceive any good or lovely thing in this world 
or any other: and the third sum of fact is, that 
in this rich England I saw only eight out of 
eight hundred persons gracefully dressed and 
decently mannered. 



PROCEEDS OF DENMARK HILL." 

I have round me here at Denmark Hill seven 
acres of leasehold ground. I pay ^50 a year 
ground rent, and ^250 a year in wages to my 
gardeners; besides expenses in fuel for hot- 
houses, and the like. And for this sum of three 
hundred odd pounds a year I have some peas 
and strawberries in summer; some camellias and 
azaleas in winter; and good cream, and a quiet 
place to walk in, all the year round. Of the 
strawberries, cream, and peas, I eat more than is 
good for me; sometimes, of course, obliging my 
friends with a superfluous pottle or pint. The 
camellias and azaleas stand in the anteroom of 
my library; and everybody says, when they come 
in, "how pretty," and my young lady friends 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2$? 

have leave to gather what they like to put in 
their hair. 



DRESS FOR THE BENEFIT OF BEHOLDERS. 

When a lady walks about town with three or 
four yards of silk tied in a bundle behind her, 
she doesn't see it herself, or benefit by it herself. 
She carries it for the benefit of beholders. 
When she has put all her diamonds on in the 
evening, tell her to stay at home and enjoy them 
in a radiant solitude; and the child, with his for- 
bidden barley-sugar, will not look more blank. 
She carries her caparison either for the pleasure 
or for the mortification of society; and can no 
more enjoy its brilliancy by herself than a chan- 
delier can enjoy having its gas lighted. 



THE INDUSTRIOUS PRINCESS. 

The Princess, whom I judged to be industri- 
ous because she went on working while she 
talked to her father about her marriage, cannot on 
this ground be praised beyond Princesses in 
general; for, indeed, the little mischief instead 
of working, as I thought, — while her father is 
leaning his head on his hand in the greatest dis- 



258 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

tress at the thought of parting with her, — is try- 
ing on her marriage ring! 



THE RIGHT. 

1 must do what /think right/* How often 
is this sentence uttered and acted on — bravely — 
nobly — innocently; but always — because of its 
egotism — erringly. You must not do what you 
think right, but, whether you or anybody think, 
or don't think it, what is right. 

" I must act according to the dictates of my 
conscience." 

By no means, my conscientious friend, unless 
you are quite sure that yours is not the con- 
science of an ass. 



ALICE OF SALISBURY. 

I want you not to forget Alice of Salisbury. 
King Edward's first sight of her was just after 
she had held her castle exactly in this way, 
against a raid of the Scots in Lord Salisbury's 
absence. Edward rode night and day to help 
her; and the Scots besiegers, breaking up at his 
approach, this is what follows, which you may 
receive on Froissart's telling as the vital and ef- 
fectual truth of the matter. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 259 

"So the King came at noon; and angry he 
was to find the Scots gone; for he had come in 
such haste that all his people and horses were 
dead-tired and toiled. So every one went to 
rest; and the King, as soon as he was disarmed, 
took ten or twelve knights with him, and went 
toward the castle to salute the Countess, and 
see how the defence had been made. So soon 
as the Lady of Salisbury knew of the King's 
coming, she made all the gates be opened (in- 
most and outmost at once), and came out, so 
richly dressed that every one was wonderstruck 
at her, and no one could cease looking at her, 
nor from receiving, as if they had been her mir- 
rors, the reflection of her great nobleness, and 
her great beauty, and her gracious speaking and 
bearing herself. When she came to the King, 
she bowed down to the earth, over against him, 
in thanking him for his help, and brought him 
to the castle, to delight him and honor him — as 
she who well knew how to do it. Every one 
looked at her, even to amazement, and the King 
himself could not stop looking at her, for it 
seemed to him that in the world never was lady 
who was so much to be loved as she. So they 
went hand in hand into the castle, and the Lady 
led him first into the great hall, and then into 
her own chamber (what the French now call a 
pouting-room, but the ladies of that day either 



26o PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

smiled or frowned, but did not pout), which was 
nobly furnished, as befitted such lady. And al- 
ways the King looked at the gentle Lady, so 
hard that she became all ashamed. When he had 
looked at her a long while, he went away to a win- 
dow, to lean upon it, and began to think deeply. 
The Lady went to cheer the other knights and 
squires; then ordered the dinner to be got ready, 
and the room to be dressed. When she had de- 
vised all, and commanded her people what 
seemed good to her, she returned with a glad- 
some face before the King." 



SAINT URSULA. 

There was once a just and most Christian 
King of Britain, called Maurus. To him and to 
his wife Daria was born a little girl, the fairest 
creature that this earth ever saw. She came 
into the world wrapped in a hairy mantle, and 
all men wondered greatly what this might mean. 
Then the King gathered together his wise men 
to inquire of them. But they could not make 
known the thing to him, for only God in Heaven 
knew how the rough robe signified that she 
should follow holiness and purity all her days, 
and the wisdom of St. John the Baptist. And 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 261 

because of the mantle, they called her "Ursula," 
— " Little Bear." 

Now Ursula grew day by day in grace and 
loveliness, and in such wisdom that all men 
marvelled. Yet should^they not have marvelled, 
since with God ail things are possible. And 
when she was fifteen years old, she was a light 
of all wisdom, and a glass of all beauty, and a 
fountain of scripture and of sweet ways. Love- 
lier woman there was not alive. Her speech 
was so full of all delight that it seemed as 
though an angel of Paradise had taken human 
flesh. And in all the kingdom no weighty thing 
was done without counsel of Ursula. 

So her fame was carried through the earth, 
and a King of England, a heathen of over-seas, 
hearing, was taken with the love of her. And 
he set all his heart on having her for wife to his 
son ^Ether, and for daughter in his home. So 
he sent a mighty and honorable embassy, of 
earls and marquesses, with goodly company of 
knights, and ladies, and philosophers; bidding 
them, with all courtesy and discretion, pray 
King Maurus to give Ursula in marriage to 
^Ether. " But," he said, " if Maurus will not 
hear your gentle words, open to him all my 
heart, and tell him that I will ravage his land 
with fire, and slay his people, and make himself 
die a cruel death, and will, after, lead Ursula 



262 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

away with me. Give him but three days to an- 
swer, for I am wasted with desire to finish the 
matter, and hold Ursula in my ward." 

But when the ambassadors came to King 
Maurus, he would not have his daughter wed a 
heathen; so, since prayers and gifts did not 
move him, they spoke out all the threats. Now 
the land of Britain was little, and its soldiers 
few, while the heathen was a mighty King and a 
conqueror; so Maurus, and his Queen, and his 
councillors, and all the people, were in sore dis- 
tress. 

But on the evening of the second day, Ursula 
went into her chamber, and shut close the doors; 
and before the image of the Father, who is very 
pitiful, prayed all night with tears, telling how 
she had vowed in her heart to live a holy maiden 
all her days, having Christ alone for spouse. 
But, if His will were that she should wed the 
son of the heathen King, she prayed that wisdom 
might be given her to turn the hearts of all that 
people who knew not faith nor holiness; and 
power to comfort her father and mother, and all 
the people of her fatherland. 

And when the clear light of dawn was in the 
air she fell asleep. And the Angel of the Lord 
appeared to her in a dream, saying, "Ursula, 
your prayer is heard. At the sunrising you 
shall go boldly before the ambassadors of the 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 263 

King of Over-sea, for the God of Heaven shall 
give you wisdom, and teach your tongue what 
it should speak." When it was day, Ursula 
arose to bless and glorify the name of God. 
She put on for covering and for beauty an en- 
wrought mantle like the starry sky, and was 
crowned with a coronet of gems. Then, straight- 
way passing to her father's chamber, she told 
him what grace had been done to her that night, 
and all that now was in her heart to answer to 
the ambassadors of Over-sea. So, though long 
he would not, she persuaded her father. 

Then Maurus, and his lords and councillors, 
and the ambassadors of the heathen King, were 
gathered in the Hall of Council. And when 
Ursula entered the place where these lords were, 
one said to the other, " Who is this that comes 
from Paradise?" For she moved in all noble 
gentleness, with eyes inclined to earth, learned, 
and frank, and fair, delightful above all women 
upon earth. Behind her .came a hundred maid- 
ens, clothed in white silk, fair and lovely. They 
shone brightly as the stars, but Ursula shone as 
the moon and the evening star. 

Now this was the answer Ursula made, which 
the King caused to be written, and sealed with 
the royal seal, and gave to the ambassadors of 
the King of Over-sea. 

" I will take," she said, " for spouse, ^Ether, 



264 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

the son of my lord the King of Over-sea. But 
I ask of my lord three graces, and with heart 
and soul pray of him to grant them. 

" The first grace I ask is this, that he, and the 
Queen, and their son, my spouse, be baptized in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Spirit. 

" The second grace is that three years may 
be given me, before the bridal, in which to go 
to and fro upon the sea, that I may visit the 
bodies of the Saints in Rome, and the blessed 
places of the Holy Land. 

" And for the last grace I ask that he choose 
ten fair maidens of his [kingdom, and with each 
of these a thousand more, all of gentle blood, 
who shall come to me here, in Britain, and go 
with me in gladness upon the sea, following this 
my holy pilgrimage." 

Then spake one of the nobles of the land to 
Maurus, saying, " My lord the King, this your 
daughter is the Dove of Peace come from Para- 
dise, the same that in the days of the flood 
brought to the Ark of Noah the olive branch of 
good news." And at the answer, were the am- 
bassadors so full of joy that they well nigh 
could not speak, and with praise and triumph 
they went their way, and told their master all 
the sweet answer of Ursula. 

Then my lord the King said, " Praised and 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 26$ 

blessed be the name of our God Malcometto, 
who has given my soul for comfort that which 
it desired. Truly there is not a franker lady 
under the wheel of the sun; and by the body of 
my mother I swear there is nothing she can ask 
that I will not freely give. First of the maidens 
she desires shall be my daughter Florence." 
Then all his lords rose, man by man, and gladly 
named, each, his child. 

So the will of Ursula was done; and that 
King, and all his folk, were baptized into the 
Holy Faith. And ^Ether, with the English 
maidens, in number above ten thousand, came 
to the land of Britain. 

Then Ursula chose her own four sisters, 
Habila, and Julia, and Victoria, and Aurea, and 
a thousand daughters of her people, with certain 
holy bishops, and great lords, and grave coun- 
cillors, and an abbot of the order of St. Bene- 
dict, men full of all wisdom, and friends of God. 

So all that company set sail in eleven ships,, 
and passing this way and that upon the sea, re- 
joiced in it, and in this their maiden pilgrimage. 
And those who dwelt by the shores of the sea 
came forth in multitudes to gaze upon them as 
they passed, and to each man it appeared a de- 
lightful vision. For the ships sailed in fair 
order, side by side, with sound of sweet psalms 
and murmur of the waters. And the maidens 



266 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

were clad, some in scarlet and some in pure 
samite, some in rich silk and Damascus, some in 
cloth of gold, and some in the purple robe that 
is woven in Judea. Some wore crowns, others 
garlands of flowers. Upon the shoulder of 
each was the visible cross, in the hands of each 
a pilgrim's staff, by their sides were pilgrim's 
scrips, and each ship's company sailed under the 
gonfalon of the Holy Cross. Ursula in the 
midst was like a ray of sunlight, and the Angel 
of the Lord was ever with them for guide. 

So in the holy time of Lent they came to 
Rome. And when my lord the Pope came 
forth, under the Castle of St. Angelo, with 
great state, to greet them, seeing their blessed 
assembly, he put off the mantle of Peter, and 
with many bishops, priests, and brothers, and 
certain cardinals, set himself to go with them on 
their blessed pilgrimage. 

At length they came to the land of Slavonia, 
whose ruler was friend and liegeman to the Sol- 
dan of Babylon, Then the Lord of the Sara- 
cens sent straightway to the Soldan, telling what 
a mighty company had come to his land, and 
how they were Christian folk. And the Soldan 
gathered all his men of war, and with great rage 
the host of the heathen made against the com- 
pany of Ursula. 

And when they were nigh, the Soldan cried, 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 267 

and said, " What folk are ye ?" And Ursula 
spake in answer, "We are Christian folk: our 
feet are turned to the blessed tomb of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, for the saving of our souls, and 
that we may win grace to pass into eternal life, 
in the blessed Paradise." And the Soldan 
answered, " Either deny your God, or I will slay 
you all with the sword. So shall ye die a dolor- 
ous death, and see your land no more." And 
Ursula answered, " Even so we desire to be sure 
witnesses of the name of God, declaring and 
preaching the glory of His name; because He 
has made heaven and earth and the sea by His 
word; and afterward all living things; and after- 
ward has willed Himself to die, for our salva- 
tion and glory. And who follows Him shall go to 
rejoice in His Fatherland and in His Kingdom." 
Then she turned to her people: " My sisters 
and my brothers, in this place God has given us 
great grace. Embrace and make it sure, for 
our death in this place will be life perpetual, 
and joy, and sweetness never ending. And 
there, above, we shall be with the Majesty and 
the angels of Paradise." Then she called her 
spouse to comfort and teach him. And he 
answered her with these words, "To me it ap- 
pears three thousand years that death is a-cora- 
ing, so much have I already tasted of the sweet- 
ness of Paradise." 



268 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

Then the Soldan gave commandment that 
they should all be slain with the sword. And 
so was it done. 

Yet when he saw Ursula standing, in the 
midst of all that slaughter, like the fairest stalk 
of corn in the harvest, and how she was exceed- 
ing lovely, beyond the tongues of this earth to 
tell, he would have saved her alive, and taken 
her for wife. But when she would not, and re- 
buked him, he was moved with anger. Now 
there was a bow in his hand, and he set an ar- 
row on the string, and drew it with all his 
strength, and it pierced the heart of the glorious 
maiden. So she went to God. 

And one maiden only, whose name was Cor- 
bula, through fear hid herself in the ship. But 
God, who had chosen all that company, gave 
her heart, and with the dawn of the next day 
she came forth willingly, and received the 
martyr's crown. 

Thus all were slain, and all are gone to Para- 
dise, and sing the glad and sweet songs of Para- 
dise. 



REDEEMED FROM DEATH. 

Read the whole passage from the beginning: 
" I saw the dead, small and great, stand before 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 269 

God. And the books were opened;" — and so 
to the end. 

" Stand" in renewed perfectness of body and 
soul — each redeemed from its own manner of 
death. 

For have not they each their own manner? 
As the seed by the drought, or the thorn, — so 
the soul by the soul's hunger, and the soul's 
pang; — athirst in the springless sand; choked in 
the return-wave of Edom; grasped by the chasm 
of the earth: some yet calling "out of the 
depths;" but some — " Thou didst blow with Thy 
wind, and the sea covered them; they sank as 
lead in the mighty waters." But now the 
natural grave, in which the gentle saints resigned 
their perfect body to the dust, and perfect spirit 
to Him who gave it; — and now the wide sea of 
the world, that drifted with its weeds so many 
breasts that heaved but with the heaving deep; 
— and now the death that overtook the linger- 
ing step, and closed the lustful eyes; — and now 
the hell, that hid with its shade, and scourged 
with its agony, the fierce and foul spirits that 
had forced its gates in flesh:* — all these the 
Loved Apostle saw, compelled to restore their 
ruin; and all these, their prey, stand once again, 
renewed, as their Maker made them, before 

* Conf. " Inferno," xxm. 123. 



270 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

their Maker. " And the sea gave up the dead 
which were in it, and death and hell the dead 
which were in them." 



TOBIAS. 



Above the sculpture of Presumptuous Sin is 
carved the Angel Michael, with the lifted sword. 
Above the sculpture of Erring Sin, is carved the 
Angel Raphael, leading Tobias and his dog. 

Not Tobit and his dog, observe. It is very 
needful for us to understand the separate stories 
of the father and son, which gave this subject so 
deep a meaning to the mediaeval Church. Read 
the opening chapter of Tobit, to the end of his 
prayer. That prayer, you will find, is the seek- 
ing of death rather than life, in entirely noble 
despair. Erring, but innocent; blind, but not 
thinking that he saw, — therefore without sin. 

To him the angel of all beautiful life is sent, 
hidden in simplicity of human duty, taking a 
servant's place for hire, to lead his son in all 
right and happy ways of life, explaining to him. 
and showing to all of us who read, in faith, for 
ever, what is the root of all the material evil in 
the world, the great error of seeking pleasure 
before use. This is the dreadfulness which 
brings the true horror of death into the world. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2JI 

which hides God in death, and which makes all 
the lower creatures of God — even the happiest, 
— suffer with us; even the most innocent, injure 
us. 



DELIVER US FROM EVIL. 

You must understand the Lord's Prayer — and 
pray it; knowing, and desiring, the good you 
ask; knowing also, and abhorring, the evil you 
ask to be delivered from; knowing and obeying 
your Father who is in Heaven; knowing and 
wrestling with "your Destroyer " who is come 
down to earth; and praying and striving also, 
that your Father's will may be done there, — not 
his; and your Father's kingdom come there, and 
not his. 

And finally, I tell you, you cannot know God, 
unless also you know His and your adversary, 
and have no fellowship with the works of that 
Living Darkness, and put upon you the armor 
of that Living Light. 

" Phrases, — still phrases," think you? My 
friends, the evil spirit indeed exists; and in so 
exact contrary power to God's, that as men go 
straight to God by believing in Him, they go 
straight to the Devil by disbelieving in him. Do 
but fairly rise to fight him, and you will feel him 



272 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

fast enough, and have as much on your hands as 
you are good for. Act, then. Act — yourselves, 
waiting for no one. Feed the hungry, clothe 
the naked, to the last farthing in your own 
power. 



THE NINETEENTH PSALM. 

I. The Law of the Lord. Which is perfect, 
converting the soul. 

That is the constant law of creation, which 
breathes life into matter, soul into life. 

II. The Testimonies of the Lord. Which 
are sure, — making wise the simple. 

These are what He has told us of His law, by 
the lips of the prophets, — from Enoch, the sev- 
enth from Adam, by Moses, by Hesiod, by David, 
by Elijah, by Isaiah, by the Delphic Sibyl, by 
Dante, by Chaucer, by Giotto. Sure testimo- 
nies all; their witness agreeing together, making 
wise the simple — that is to say, all holy and 
humble men of heart. 

III. The Statutes of the Lord. Which 
are right, and rejoice the heart. 

These are the appointed conditions that gov- 
ern human life; — that reward virtue, infallibly; 
punish vice, infallibly; — gladsome to see in 
operation. The righteous shall be glad when 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2?$ 

he seeth the vengeance — how much more in the 
mercy to thousands? 

IV. The Commandment of the Lord. 
Which is pure, enlightening the eyes. 

This is the written law — under (as we count) 
ten articles, but in many more, if you will read. 
Teaching us, in so many words, when we cannot 
discern it unless we are told, what the will of 
our Master is. 

V. The Fear of the Lord. Which is clean,, 
enduring forever. 

Fear, or faith, — in this sense one: the human 
faculty that purifies, and enables us to see this 
sunshine; and to be warmed by it, and made to 
live forever in it. 

VI. The Judgments of the Lord. Which 
are true, and righteous altogether. 

These are His searchings out and chastise- 
ments of our sins; His praise and reward of our 
battle; the fiery trial that tries us, but is " na 
strange thing "; the crown that is laid up for all 
that love His appearing. More to be desired 
are they than gold: — (David thinks first of these 
special judgments) — Sweeter than honey or the 
honeycomb; — moreover by them is Thy servant 
warned, and in keeping of them there is great 
reward. Then — pausing — " who can understand 
his errors? Cleanse Thou me from the faults I 
know not, and keep me from those I know; and 



274 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

let the words of my lips, and the thoughts of my 
brain, be acceptable in thy open sight — oh, 
Lord, my strength, who hast made me, — my 
Redeemer, who hast saved." 



toni s DOG. 

If I don't tell you my tale of the Venetian 
doggie at once, it's all over with it. How so 
much love and life can be got into a little tan- 
gle of floss silk, St. Theodore knows, not I; and 
its master is one of the best servants in this 
world, to one of the best masters. It was to be 
drowned, soon after its eyes had opened to the 
light of sea and sky, — a poor worthless wet flake 
of floss silk it had like to have been, presently. 
Toni pitied it, pulled it out of the water, bought 
it for certain sous, brought it home under his 
arm. What it learned out of his heart in that 
half -hour, again, St. Theodore knows; — but the 
mute spiritual creature has been his own, verily, 
from that day, and only lives for him. Toni, 
being a pious Toni as well as a pitiful, went this 
last autumn, in his holiday, to see the Pope; but 
did not think of taking the doggie with him 
(who, St. Theodore would surely have said, 
ought to have seen the Pope too). Whereupon, 
the little silken mystery wholly refused to eat. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 27$ 

No coaxing, no tempting, no nursing, would 
cheer the desolate-minded thing from that sin- 
cere fast. It would drink a little, and was 
warmed and medicined as best might be. Toni 
came back from Rome in time to save it; but it 
was not its gay self again for many and many a 
day after; the terror of such loss, as yet again 
possible, weighing on the reviving mind (stomach, 
supposably, much out of order also). It greatly 
dislikes getting itself wet; for, indeed, the tangle 
of its mortal body takes half a day to dry; some 
terror and thrill of uncomprehended death, per- 
haps, remaining on it, also, — who knows? but 
once, after this terrible Roman grief, running 
along the quay cheerfully beside rowing Toni, it 
saw him turn the gondola's head six feet aside, as 
if going away. The dog dashed into the water like 
a mad thing. " See, now, if aught but death 
part thee and me," 



STAR-LIGHT. 

I have nothing to do, nor have you, with what 
is happening in space (or possibly may happen 
in time) ; we have only to attend to what is hap- 
pening here — and now. Yonder, stars are rising. 
Have you ever noticed their order, heard their 
ancient names, thought of what they were, as 



27 6 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

teachers, " lecturers," in that large public hall of 
the night, to the wisest men of old? Have you 
•ever thought of the direct promise to you your- 
selves, that you may be like them if you will? 
" They that be wise, shall shine as the brightness 
of the firmament; and they that turn many to 
righteousness, as the stars, for ever and ever." 



TRUE RELIGIONS FORMS OF PRAYER. 

I found, and have always since taught, and do 
teach, and shall teach, I doubt not, till I die, 
that in resolving to do our work well, is the only 
sound foundation of any religion whatsoever; 
and that by that resolution only, and what we 
have done, and not by our belief, Christ will 
judge us, as He has plainly told us He will (though 
nobody believes Him), in the resurrection. 

All the true religions of the world are forms 
of the prayer, " Search me, and know my heart; 
prove me, and examine my thoughts; and see if 
there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in 
the way everlasting." 

And there are broadly speaking, two ways in 
which the Father of men does this: the first, by 
making them eager to tell their faults to Him 
themselves (Father, I have sinned against heaven 
and before Thee); the second, by making them 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 2*]*J 

sure they cannot be hidden, if they would: "If 
I make my bed in hell, behold Thou art there." 
The day will te ill-spent in which you have 
not been able, at least once, to say the Lord's 
Prayer with understanding: and if after it you 
accustom yourself to say, with the same intent- 
ness, that familiar one in your church service^ 
" Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open," 
etc., you will not fear, during the rest of the day, 
to answer any questions which it may conduce 
to your neighbor's good should be put to you. 



MISCHIEVOUS FAIR ONES. 

I am blamed by my prudent acquaintances for 
being too personal; but truly, I find vaguely ob- 
jurgatory language generally a mere form of what 
Plato calls (TKiajj,axia y or shadow-fight: and 
that unless one can plainly say, Thou art the 
man (or woman, which is more probable), one 
might as well say nothing at all. So I will frank- 
ly tell, without wandering into wider circles, 
among my own particular friends, whose fault it 
is. First, those two lovely ladies who were 
studying the Myosotis palustris with me; — yes, 
and by the way, a little beauty from Cheshire 
who came in afterwards; — and then, that charm- 
ing — (I didn't say she was charming, but she 



278 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

was, and is) — lady whom I had charge of at 
Furness Abbey, and her two daughters; and 
those three beautiful girls who tormented me so 
on the 23d of May, 1875, and another one who 
greatly disturbed my mind at church, only a Sun- 
day or two ago, with the sweetest little white 
straw bonnet I had ever seen, only letting a lock 
or two escape of the curliest hair, — so that I was 
fain to make her a present of a Prayer-book 
afterwards, advising her that her tiny ivory one 
was too coquettish, — and my own pet cousin; 
and — I might name more, but leave their accusa- 
tion to their consciences. 

These, and the like of them (not that there 
are very many their like), are the very head and 
front of mischief; 'first because, as I told them 
in Queen's Gardens, ages ago, they have it in 
their power to do whatever they like with men 
and things, and yet do so little with either; and 
secondly, because by very reason of their beauty 
and virtue, they have become the excuse for all 
the iniquity of our days: it seems so impossible 
that the social order which produces such creat- 
ures should be a wrong one. 



DESTINY AND PROVIDENCE. 

In some separate pieces, the great masters will 
indeed exhibit the darkest mystery of human 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 279 

fate, but never without showing, even then, that 
the catastrophe is owing, in the root of it, to the 
violation of some moral law: " She hath deceived 
her father, — and may thee." The root of the 
entire tragedy is marked ^by the mighty master 
in that one line — the double sin, namely, of 
daughter and father; of the first into lawlessly 
forgetting her own people, and her fathers house; 
and of the second, in allowing his pride and self- 
ishness to conquer his paternal love, and harden 
him, not only in abandonment of his paternal 
duty, but in calumnious insult to his child. Nor, 
even thus, is Shakespeare content without mark- 
ing, in the name of the victim of evil fortune, 
his purpose in the tragedy, of showing that there 
is such a thing as destiny, permitted to veil the 
otherwise clear Providence, and to leave it only 
to be found by noble will, and proved by noble 
faith. 



" HEART OF MIDLOTHIAN. 



Although always, in reading Scott, one thinks 
the story one has last finished the best, there can 
be little question that the one which has right of 
pre-eminence is the " Heart of Midlothian," be- 
ing devoted to the protraiture of the purest life 
and most vital religion of his native country. 



280 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

It is also the most distinct in its assertion of 
the moral law; the assignment of earthly reward 
and punishment being, in this story, as accu- 
rately proportioned to the degrees of virtue and 
vice as the lights and shades of a photograph to 
the force of the rays. The absolute truth and 
faith of Jeanie make the suffering through which 
she has to pass the ultimate cause of an entirely 
prosperous and peaceful life for herself, her 
father, and her lover: the falsehood and vanity 
of Effie prepare for her a life of falsehood and 
vanity: the pride of David Deans is made the 
chief instrument of his humiliation; and the 
6elf-confidence, which separated him from true 
fellowship with his brother-Christians, becomes 
the cause of his eternal separation from his child. 

Also, there is no other analysis of the good 
and evil of the pure Protestant faith which can 
be for a moment compared to that in the " Heart 
of Midlothian," showing that in an entirely sim- 
ple, strong, and modest soul it brings forth fruit 
of all good works and kindly thoughts; but that, 
when it meets with innate pride, and the uncon- 
querable selfishness which comes from want of 
sympathy, it leads into ludicrous and fatal self- 
worship, mercilessness to the errors, whether in 
thought or conduct, of others; and blindness to 
the teaching of God Himself, where it is con- 
trary to the devotee's own habits of thought. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 28 1 



HEALTHY READING. 

The sense, to a healthy mind, of being 
strengthened or enervated by reading, is just as 
definite and unmistakable as the sense, to a 
healthy body, of being in fresh or foul air: and 
no more arrogance is involved in forbidding the 
reading of an unwholesome book, than in a phy- 
sician's ordering the windows to be opened in a 
sick room. There is no question whatever con- 
cerning these matters, with any person who hon- 
estly desires to be informed about them; — the 
real arrogance is only in expressing judgments, 
either of books or anything else, respecting 
which we have taken no trouble to be informed. 



POWER OF PAINTING. 

The one thing you have to learn — the one 
power truly called that of " painting " — is to lay 
on any colored substance, whatever its consist- 
ence may be (from mortar to ether), at once, of 
the exact tint you want, in the exact form you 
want, and in the exact quantity you want. That 
is painting. 

Now, you are well aware that to play on the 
violin well requires some practice. Painting is 
playing on a color-violin, seventy-times-seven 



282 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

stringed, and inventing your tune as you play it! 
That is the easy, simple, straightforward busi- 
ness you have to learn. Here is your catgut and 
your mahogany — better or worse quality of both 
of course there may be — Cremona tone, and so 
on, to be discussed with due care, in due time; 
— you cannot paint miniature on the sail of a 
fishing-boat, nor do the fine work with hog's 
bristles that you can with camel's hair: — all 
these catgut and bristle questions shall have 
their place; but the primary question of all is — 
can you play? 

Perfectly, you never can, but by birth-gift. 
The entirely first-rate musicians and painters are 
born, like Mercury; — their words are music, and 
their touch is gold: sound and color wait on. 
them from their youth; and no practice will ever 
enable other human creatures to do anything 
like them. The most favorable conditions, the 
most docile and apt temper, and the unwearied 
practice of life, will never enable any painter of 
merely average human capacity to lay a single 
touch like Gainsborough, Velasquez, Tintoretto, 
or Luini. But to understand that the matter 
must still depend on practice as well as on 
genius, — that painting is not one wit less, but 
more, difficult than playing on an instrument, — 
and that your care as a student, on the whole, is 
siot to be given to the quality of your piano, but 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 283 

of your touch, — this is the great fact which I 
have to teach you respecting color; this is the 
root of all excellent doing and perceiving. 

And you will be utterly amazed, when once 
you begin to feel what color means, to find how 
many qualities which appear to result from 
peculiar method and material do indeed depend 
only on loveliness of execution; and how divine 
the law of nature is, which has so connected the 
immortality of beauty with patience of industry, 
that by precision and rightness of laborious art 
you may at last literally command the rainbow to 
stay, and forbid the sun to set. 



GUARDIAN ANGELS. 

Those parents who love their children nv,«<; 
tenderly cannot but sometimes dwell on the old 
Christian fancy, that they have guardian angels. 
I call it an old fancy, in deference to your mod- 
ern enlightenment in religion; but I assure you 
nevertheless, in spite of all that illumination, 
there remains yet some dark possibility that the 
old fancy may be true; and that, although the 
modern apothecary cannot exhibit to you either 
an angel or an imp in a bottle, the spiritual 
powers of heaven and hell are, no less now than 
heretofore, contending for the souls of your 



284 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

children; and contending with you — for the 
privilege of their tutorship. 

Forgive me if I use, for the few minutes I 
have yet to speak to you, the ancient language 
— metaphorical, if you will — of Luther and 
Fenelon, of Dante and Milton, of Goethe and 
Shakespeare, of St. John and St. Paul, rather 
than your modern metaphysical or scientific 
slang; and if I tell you, what in the issue of it 
you will find is either life-giving or deadly fact, 
— that the fiends and the angels contend with you 
daily for the spirits of your children: the devil 
using to you his old, his hitherto immortal 
bribes of lust and pride; and the angels plead- 
ing with you still, that they may be allowed to 
lead your babes in the divine life of the pure 
and the lowly. To enrage their lusts, and chiefly 
the vilest lust of money, the devils would drag 
them to the classes that teach them how to get 
on in the world; and for the better pluming of 
their pride, provoke their zeal in the sciences 
which will assure them of there being no God in 
nature but the gas of their own graves. 

And of these powers you may discern the one 
from the other by a vivid, instant, practical test. 
The devils always will exhibit to you what is 
loathsome, ugly, and above all, dead; and the 
angels, what is pure, beautiful, and above all, liv- 
ing. 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 285 

Take an actual, literal instance. Of all known 
quadrupeds, the unhappiest and vilest yet alive 
is the sloth, having this further strange devilry 
in him, that what activity he is capable of is in 
storm, and in the night. Well, the devil takes 
up this creature, and makes a monster of it, — 
gives it legs as big as hogsheads, claws stretched 
like the roots of a tree, shoulders like a hump 
of crag, and a skull as thick as a paving-stone. 
From this nightmare monster he takes what poor 
faculty of motion the creature, though wretched, 
has in its minuter size; and shows you, instead 
of the clinging climber that scratched and 
scrambled from branch to branch among the 
rattling trees as they bowed in storm, only a vast 
heap of stony bones and staggering clay, that 
drags its meat down to its mouth out of the for- 
est ruin. This creature the fiends delight to 
exhibit to you, but are permitted by the nobler 
powers only to exhibit to you in its death. 

On the other hand, as of all quadrupeds there 
is none so ugly or so miserable as the sloth, so, 
take him for all in all, there is none so beautiful, 
so happy, as the squirrel. Innocent in all hia 
ways, harmless in his food, playful as a kitten, 
but without cruelty, and surpassing the fantastic 
dexterity of the monkey, with the grace and the 
brightness of a bird, the little dark-eyed miracle 
of the forest glances from branch to branch more 



286 PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 

like a sunbeam than a living creature; it leaps, 
and darts, and twines, where it will; — a chamois 
is slow to it; and a panther, clumsy: grotesque 
as a gnome, gentle as a fairy, delicate as the 
silken plumes of the rush, beautiful and strong 
like the spiral of a fern, it haunts you, listens for 
you, hides from you, looks for you, loves you, as 
if the angel that walks with your children had 
made it himself for their heavenly plaything. 

And this is what you do, to thwart alike your 
child's angel and his God, — you take him out of 
the woods into the town, — you send him from 
modest labor to competitive schooling, — you 
force him out of the fresh air into the dusty bone- 
house, — you show him the skeleton of the dead 
monster, and make him pore over its rotten cells 
and wire-stitched joints, and vile extinct capa- 
cities of destruction, — and when he is choked 
and sickened with useless horror and putrid air, 
you let him — regretting the waste of time — go 
out for once to play again by the woodside; — 
and the first squirrel he sees, he throws a stone 
at. 

Carry, then, I beseech you, this assured truth 
away with you to-night. All true science begins 
in the love, not the dissection, of your fellow 
creatures; and it ends in the love not the analy- 
sis, of God. Your alphabet of science is in the 
nearest knowledge, as your alphabet of science 



PEARLS FOR YOUNG LADIES. 287 

is in the nearest duty. " Behold, it is nigh thee, 
even at the doors." The Spirit of God is around 
you in the air that you breathe, His glory in the 
light that you see; and in the fruitfulness of 
the earth, and the joy of its creatures, He has 
written for you, day by day, His revelation, as 
He has granted you, day by day, your daily 
bread. 



THE END, 



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